"Brin, David - Earth (UC)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brin David)

notions of up and down. It challenged faith in the ground
below your feet. Alex tried to explain.
"The generals showed me their power plant ... offered
me a blank check to construct its core. So I took their
word they'd be getting permission soon. Any day now, they
kept telling me." Alex shrugged at his former gullibility. An
old story, if a bitter one.
"Like everybody else, I was sure the Standard Physical
Model was correct--that no black hole lighter than the
Earth itself could possibly be stable. Especially one as tiny as
we made at Iquitos. It was supposed to evaporate at a controlled
rate, after all. Its heat would power three provinces.
Most of my colleagues think such facilities will be cleared
for use within a decade.
"But the generals wanted to jump the moratorium--"
"Idiots," Button interrupted, shaking his head. "They
actually imagined they could keep a thing like that secret?
These days?"
For the first time since Alex's bombshell, Stan Goldman
put in a comment. "Well, George, they must have thought
the plant well isolated in the Amazon."
Button snorted dubiously, and in retrospect Alex
agreed. The idea was harebrained. He'd been naive to accept
the generals' assurances of a calm working environment,
which proved as untrustworthy as the standard models of
physics.
"In fact," Coldman went on. "It took a leak from a
secrets registration service to set that Manella character on
Alex's trail. If not for that, Alex might still be tending the
singularity, safe inside its containment field. Isn't that right,
Alex?"
Good old Stan. Alex thought affectionately. Still making excuses for his favorite student, just as he used to back
in Cambridge.
"No, it's not. You see, before the riot, I was already
preparing to sabotage the plant myself."
While this seemed to surprise Coldman, George Button
only tilted his head slightly. "You had discovered something
unusual about your black hole."
Alex nodded. "Before 2020, nobody imagined such
things could be made in the laboratory at all. When it was
found you could actually fold space inside a box and make a
singularity . . . that shock should have taught us humility.
8 DAVIDBRIN
But success made us smug, instead. Soon we thought we
understood the damned things. But there are ... subtleties
we never imagined."
He spread his hands. "I first grew suspicious because
things were going too bloody well! The power plant was
extremely efficient, you see. We didn't have to feed in much
matter to keep it from dissipating. The generals were delighted