"Baxter, Stephen - Raft" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baxter Stephen)

Raft
a short story by Stephen Baxter

Foreword

The short story 'Raft' came from a throwaway piece of speculation I read
on the fine-tuning of physical parameters in our universe. If gravity were
a little stronger, stars would be smaller and would burn out more quickly
...
'Raft', of course, turned out to be an important story for me. It was
always too big an idea to cram into a short story; I had to wrestle it
down from 10,000 word early drafts. And even after it was published, in
Interzone, my mind wouldn't let go of the scenario, coming up with fresh
wrinkles on the central conceit. When I started to think about a first
novel, the universe of 'Raft' was an obvious place to return to, and the
story is now a very rough sketch of what the novel became.

Raft

Rees and Glover padded towards the cable.
Plant-like, the cable thrust upwards out of the deck's plates, creaking
under the weight of the Raft and all its occupants. A hundred metres up it
was tethered to the hub of a tree. The great wooden wheel rotated
complacently; Rees was close enough to feel the downwash from its
aerodynamically shaped branches.
Around the cable two skitters were dancing out their courtship. The little
round creatures fizzed as they flew.
Now the boys were only metres away - and Glover giggled, his wide face
flushed with excitement. Rees glared; but the skitters continued their
dance, their dim intelligence unable to distinguish the boys' motion from
the shadows cast by the falling stars.
Rees grinned and motioned Glover forward. He spread his hands wide.
Everything seemed to become vivid: he could count the rivets under his
bare feet; he could make out the male shape of the nearest skitter's rotor
blades ...
Now the male sensed the presence of Rees' gravity well. It darted in
alarm. For a few seconds Rees allowed the creature's gravity pull to work
over his palms; it was like the touch of a child. Then, with a stab of
regret, he closed his hands and crushed the skitter's substance -
- and the breath was knocked out of him by Glover's bulk thumping into his
back.
"You bloody idiot, Glover."
Glover grinned triumphantly: "I got it!" The female's spokes protruded
from his fist.
Obscurely disgusted, Rees pushed himself away from Glover's gravitational
cling. "Yeah, well, we've only got a few minutes left before Hollerbach
comes down this way. Come on - up into the tree -"
Clutching his skitter, Rees led the way up the cable, clambering with
hands and feet. After the first dozen metres they'd climbed out of the
diffuse gravitational field of the Raft; now their climb was opposed only