"Benford G - Furious Gulf" - читать интересную книгу автора (Benford Gregory)

directly into the center of the galaxsв where vast, indifferent energies
worked. Huge, glowering suns. Incandescent clouds of dust and gas.
Powers far beyond anything mere humans could manage. And somewhere
here, intelligences to match the mad swirl of stars.

He had studied enough history to know that humans had evolved
near a star two-thirds of the way out in the galactic spiral. The galaxy was a
spinning disk, like a toy--only bigger than the human mind could encompass.
Out there at Old Earth, far from the cataclysms of True Center, living
had been easy, quiet.

One of his instructional drills had tried to get him to visualize a box
that was a light-year on a side, the distance light itself could travel in a
whole year. Out there, near the legendary Earth, that box would hold
maybe one single star, on average.

Here, at Galactic Center, such a box held a million stars.

Suns crowded the sky like glowing marbles. Stormy streamers of red
gas shrouded them. Stars swarmed like angry bees around the central
axis--the blue-white brilliance of the exact center.

 FURIOUS GULF
3


Toby said quietly,--We could come alongside one of 'em, just for a
look.--

Killeen shook his head.--Solve one problem, maybe, but make another.
A worse one.--

--We're starving, Dad. We have to do something.--

Killeen turned and strode angrily away along the worn and pitted
hull. His magnetos snapped down to the metal with a hard clank that Toby
felt through his own boots. He trotted after his father. Walking here took a
strangely gaited stride, coasting between steps, letting his boot damp just
long enough to get more momentum. Then he jerked the boot free, pushing
forward, and was off on another glide. Toby was good at it but he
couldn't keep pace with his father.

Argo had brought them here at near-light speeds, gulping down
plasma with her magnetic scoops. There was fuel aplenty, thicker and
thicker as they neared the center. Still, random chunks of rock had pocked
and blistered her shiny hull. Now they were coasting slower, and Killeen
used the chance to hull-walk with some safety. Argo had joined the gyre of
matter here, which swung about True Center at one-thousandth light
speed.