"Kevin J. Anderson -1993- Assemblers of Infinity (v1.0) (txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Kevin J)

"The rest of this is classified, too. The wind is too high for the Navy helicopters to make the delivery. We're the escorts."

Gunther looked defeated and sighed. He bested his fear. "I wish I had not offered to come along. I do not like that place."

Kent wiggled his dark eyebrows. "What's the matter? Erika Trace is in there, and she's the most available woman on this whole continent."

Gunther Mosby seemed not to hear as he sealed his helmet, for whatever protection that would afford him against the canister samples. "At least they have showers," he said.

Low-angled sunlight pooled through the passive-solar heating plates of the Nanotech Isolation Laboratory. Dr. Jordan Parvu smiled to himself as he stared at the images of his four grandchildren. They rubbed their eyes and waved to him. Parvu had forgotten that it would be the middle of the night when he called his son, but Timothy had rushed to wake up the children. As busy as he was with his work and with the perpetual daylight here in Antarctica, Parvu sometimes forgot the natural daily rhythms of other people.

The NIL's optical uplinks and the big viewing screen were supposedly used for teleconferencing, data transfer, and occasional remote-presence experiments from other nanotechnology researchers across the globe. But no one would begrudge him an occasional personal call. His only assistant, Erika Trace, rarely used her own allotment.

Timothy seemed at a loss for words and didn't know how to keep the conversation going. Parvu himself didn't need to say much -- just looking at his family made him feel warm inside.

Parvu could see an image of himself in Timothy's face: the sharp nose, the thick hair that before long would turn to a uniform iron gray, the bushy eyebrows, dark eyes with a fan of laugh lines around them, deep brown skin, and bright teeth in a perfect smile.

"Where has your mother been?" Parvu said, "I tried to contact her a few times, but no one responds."

Timothy's expression drooped. "She's in Africa for the whole month. We told you that last month, Dad. Tromping around the Olduvai Gorge again."

"Ah yes. Please forgive me for forgetting." Sinda spent half the year indulging her interest in anthropology and primitive cultures. They had been married for 35 years, and their love had passed into a comfortable and relaxed stage. They no longer needed to be together all the time, which allowed Sinda the liberty to travel to Africa, South America, and Australia. Parvu could spend a year in Antarctica with no great hardship.

Erika Trace burst into the teleconferencing room. "Jordan -- I mean, Dr. Parvu," she amended quickly, seeing him speaking to his family, "we've got company. One of the Mars rover vehicles." The tone of her words voiced disapproval and anticipation mixed together. She wore her blond hair in a serviceable cut, long and plain with no particular attention to style. Her greenish eyes looked darker in the low sunlight.

"Ah, they must be bringing the samples from Dr. Compton-Reasor. Excuse me -- " He turned back to Timothy and was surprised to find a disapproving expression on his son's face. But Erika had never shown any sort of attraction toward him -- thank goodness! -- or even toward the Mars expedition trainees. Passion for her work consumed her. That sort of obsession shouldn't come until later in life, Parvu thought, after one had spent time living. He hoped Erika learned that before she had wasted her youth.

"I must go now, my son, my grandchildren."

"Wave goodbye now," Timothy said. In unison, the four children flapped their hands and giggled. Parvu signed off. The blank screen always made him feel hollow.

Parvu and Erika departed through the set of double airlock doors to the outside living quarters. As he cycled through the second door, he felt the wind stream past him. The air pressure increased by twenty percent through each of the doors to eliminate any chance of nanotech contamination and migration.

Astronauts Woodward and Mosby entered the habitation section only moments after he and Erika had gone to wait for them. When Kent removed his helmet, he flashed a grin at Erika. "We've brought you a present!"

Parvu had a difficult time tuning his mind to the chit-chat the two young men seemed to expect. Once he saw the black cylinder in Kent Woodward's hand, he wanted to hurry back to the lab and start testing.

Parvu noticed that Gunther Mosby kept shifting his feet as if wanting very much to leave. Parvu wondered if Mosby worried more about contamination from the prototype nanotechnology machines, or about the deadly fail-safe sterilization procedures built into the NIL. Woodward, on the other hand, kept his attention on Erika, obviously smitten. Parvu tried to hide his smile.

Erika flipped her hair behind her ear, lifted her nose in a gesture of impatience, and took the sealed specimen container from Woodward. She gave him only a brief acknowledgment before turning to Parvu. "I'll prepare the nanocore."

Before Parvu could stall her, to get her to talk to these young men, Erika had left through the airlock.

Parvu rubbed his hands together and looked at Mosby and Woodward. Eagerness to analyze the new specimens made him fidget. They had been waiting for weeks. He wanted to contact Maia Compton-Reasor and her team at Stanford, then get in touch with Maurice Taylor's team at MIT. Together, they would begin the first analysis. Combined research had been developing these new specimens for months, but they could not go forward with active automata except down here in the secure NIL.

But the astronauts seemed to be expecting something else.

Parvu breathed a sigh. They always had time for a shower. Even in Antarctica -- the most isolated place on the planet -- he still found himself playing the host.

"So, young men, would you be staying long enough for a shower?" Both of them nodded quickly.