"Anderson, Poul - Explorationsl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Poul)

I will merely write of scenes toward the end, that Daphne and I watched while she wept, my arm around her. The faulty powerplant has been repaired. The medication against radiation exposure is taking effect. The interior of the ship is cool again, scorch and sweat are gone from the air, pseudogravity generators once more provide stable weight, guardian fields scoop interstellar gas aside in an invisible bow wave so that rays no longer seethe through bodies; and a great silence has fallen.

In awe, the seven stand on their observation bridge. Lengths are shrunken, masses swollen, time dilated. Doppler shift has muffled nearly all stars fore and aft, though a few glint wanly still. Aberration has turned the rest into a single eldritch constellation girdling enormous night.

By no other light than that, Captain King leads his men in thanksgiving. "The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament sheweth his handy^work . . . For I will consider thy heavens, even the works of thy fingers; the moon and the stars, which thou has ordained. What is man, that thou art mindful of him: and the son of man, that thou visitest him?"

But Asklund stands erect, looking outward as if into the face of a foe.

Afterward they resume stations, start the super-drive; automatic optical compensators give them an illusion of being back in a familiar universe; they run toward rendezvous with their fellows.

Narrator: "In the inertialess condition, a difference of intrinsic does not manifest itself. Taking due precautions, crews from the spared vessels boarded Uriel, offered consolation, taped messages to bring home."

Some words are stammered, some stilted, some tearful. Asklund smiles almost wryly into the camera, though tenderness dwells in his voice: "-Daphne, darling, do you remember that old, old ballad I translated for you, about the dead knight who returns to his sweetheart? Do you remember what he tells her?

"For every time you're weeping And sad your mood. Then is my coffin filled inside With clotted blood ...

"But every time you're singing And have no grief. Then is my coffin filled inside With rose and leaf...

"Please give me that gift. Live. Let me know and be glad that you're happy. Because I'll be alive myself, don't forget. This is no coffin. We can have good and useful lives, if people will help. If you will help. Daphne, by not mourning but living-" There is a little more.

Narrator: "Uriel stayed on cruise while the men recovered fully from their ordeal. Meanwhile the Astronautic Corps debated what is best for them. A plan is ready, a mission in progress."

Daphne swallowed hard before she whispered in my ear: "And Sinclair, I'm going too!"

Not till she returned from training did I learn, in part, how she got her way. The recommendation she magi eked out of me was not enough, however hard I wrangled.

Director Jarvis: "Nonsense. The trouble and expense of teaching a one-shot rookie, when we've got career men? And a woman? Great Scott, just imagine the plumbing problems!"

Secretary Wardour: "Well, yes, it wouldn't hurt the Corps to perform a well-publicized act of compassion. But what kind of mercy is this, letting them meet for a couple of weeks in a crowded hull, her spacesuit always between them?"

Pastor Ben son: "Propriety first. It would be extremely difficult, at best, for a sole woman to travel and work among men, in close quarters, without occasionally revealing what should not be revealed. Morality second. She could not help arousing lust. Oh, I realize nothing untoward would happen. But minds would stray from godliness-from concentration on temporal duties also, perhaps, in that dangerous environment. Religion third but foremost. Might not the unexpected, stunning sight of her, an attractive female, briefly among men condemned to lifelong celibacy -not only her husband but the whole seven, young and virile-might that not weaken their resolve to accept the will of God? Might the memory not haunt them until at last they despair of his grace and fall into the Devil's claws?"

I was astounded when the OK came through. But I had been too busy to see much of Daphne or hear her schemes. And she was promptly whisked off to Luna base for two intensive months, while the load on me redoubled. You don't casually gather a crew, hop into a craft, and take off for the deeps. Look what happened to Uriel, where everybody supposed that everything had been checked out. The operation which I headed involved more unknowns yet.

Maybe you, archeologist, wonder why. In your ultra sophisticated astronautics (if God has not closed down technological civilization, lest we make an idol of material progress) what could be simpler than to lay alongside, both vessels in superdrive, and transfer cargo? Why, you may know how to kill such speed and let its victims rejoin the human race.

But we- Well, Uriel already had systems for recycling air and water. However, they were not completely adequate. Nobody had expected them to be in continuous use for half a century. They would degrade, poisonous organics would accumulate, unless we added refinements and ancitlaries. And we couldn't simply plug in the new stuff. We had to do considerable rebuilding. Likewise, the ship had carried six months' worth of food. We would install closed-ecology units that would feed the men indefinitely, indeed yield a large surplus. But this too we couldn't merely dump aboard. It must be integrated with everything else. For a single example of our needful planning, remember that health and sanity required we leave the crew reasonable elbow room.

And while we labored, we must take elaborate precautions to assure no substantial number of atoms from Uriel got aboard our own ship. A few nanograms would destroy us, the moment we reverted to normal state and they took off at their light-like intrinsic velocity. There wouldn't be an explosion unless the mass was really gross, up in the milligrams or whatever. But from end to end of our hull would go a fatal wave of radiation.

Obviously, Uriel can never leave the inertialess state. It must always keep moving at a quasispeed which outruns light-a modern incarnation of that eerie ancient legend, the Flying Dutchman. (What did its crew ever do, to merit their damnation?) Even if we invented a means to slow it, it would first have to enter normal state- would it not?-and our gift of supplies and machinery would annihilate it in a brief burst that might rival a nova.

Fortunately, fuel is no problem. The demands of life support are modest, those of keeping an inertialess body moving are less. Tanks topped off by us ought to serve for more years of exploration than those men have left in their bodies.

You may not believe me, in your hypothetical age of universal enlightenment, but fools have actually asked why Uriel didn't backtrack, once its superdrive was operational again, and let the double star undo what was wrought. Evidently, for them the narration was futile when explaining that a velocity is a direction as well as a speed. And, to be sure, Asklund calculated that at the rate yon companions are moving apart, already then they could no longer accelerate an infalling object in anything near the fashion they handled him.

Less crackpot was the suggestion that the ship find a safe, solitary and cold neutron star, go normal near its surface, and let gravity act as a brake, repeating this process until the intrinsic was down to a reasonable figure. This would work, but only corpses would be aboard at the end of it. The difficulty is that every such star known to us is surrounded by too much gas-whether left over from its death throes or drawn in later from the interstellar medium-through too vast a volume. Deceleration would necessarily be at a low rate, especially at first. During the time required, more hard synchrotron radiation would be generated by the passage of the vessel's own shielding fields, and leak through, than life can tolerate.

Another double of precisely the right characteristics, or any of several more exotic and hypothetical things, could reverse the effect, yes. While we have not publicized the fact, Uriel spent what months were possible on minimum rations, before reserves got hopelessly low, seeking just such a deliverance. The hunt was foredoomed, of course. Recall the sheer size of space, and guess at the probabilities. Then think what spirit was in those men, that they tried.