"Babylon 5 - The Nautilus Coil - J Gregory Keyes (txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Babylon 5)

"But you tripped it."

"No. Someone else already had, and had spent almost a year using a high-
powered AI to break the code."

Garibaldi nodded at a corpse. "These guys?"

Lyta nodded. "They were still working out a few fine points when this
happened, but the major secrets of the document had been known a few days at
least."

"You gonna keep me in the dark?"

"No." She tapped on a display, and a starfield came up. She tapped again,
isolating a single yellow-orange star. "As far as I know," she said, "this
star has no name. It's over 58 light years from the nearest charted jumpgate,
and there are no records of any visit to it. Except this one."

"What do you mean?"

"Seventy years ago, Psi Corps sent a covert expedition to the second planet
of this star. It never returned and was never heard from again."

"That's impossible. Seventy years ago -- that's before we had jumpships."

"True. The Psi Corps ship was a slower-than-light craft, capable of
travelling at relativistic speeds very near the speed of light. From what we
can tell, it piggybacked on a Centauri vessel to a jumpgate at the edge of
their space, then plowed off on its own."

Garibaldi frowned. "Fifty-eight light years at sublight speeds? That means
it's just getting there."

"We think it arrived anywhere from one to eight years ago, depending upon
its deceleration routine. Its arrival might be what brought this file to the
Corps' attention -- a hidden clock, ticking all this time, finally ringing
its alarm."

"I still don't get it. If they managed to get the Centauri to take them that
close, why not all the way?"

"Because," Lyta said, "at the time, this star was in Vorlon space."

"Oh, geez."

"Exactly. Michael, I need your help. I need to get to that planet, and I
need to beat Bester there."

"You think he's gone?"