"Brin, David - Uplift 06 - Heaven's Reach" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brin David)

slick brown surface. Still, he held back from overruling
the pilot's choice of countermeasures. Better see what
happened first.

Momentum built gradually. The station approached
the nearest yellow starfish.
Doubt spread in Harry's mind.




8 David Brin

"Maybe I should try looking this up first. They might

have the image listed somewhere."

Once upon a time, back when he was inducted as
Earth's first volunteer-recruit in the Navigation Institute
survey departmentЧfull of tape-training and idealismЧ
he used to consult the records every time E Space threw
another weird symbolism at him. After all, the Galactic
civilization of oxygen-breathing races had been explor-
ing, cataloging, and surveying this bizarre continuum for
half a billion years. The amount of information con-
tained in even his own tiny shipboard Library unit ex-
ceeded the sum of all human knowledge before contact
was made with extraterrestrials.

An impressive store . . . and as it turned out, nearly
useless. Maybe he wasn't very good at negotiating with
the Library's reference persona. Or perhaps the problem
came from being born of Earth-simian stock. Anyway,
he soon took to trusting his own instincts during mis-
sions to E Space.

Alas, that approach had one drawback. You have only
yourself to blame when things blow up in your face.

Harry noticed he was slouching. He straightened and
brought his hands together to prevent scratching. But
nervous energy had to express itself, so he tugged on
his thumbs, instead. A Tymbrimi he knew had once re-
marked that many of Harry's species had that habit, per-
haps a symptom from the long, hard process of Uplift.

The forward tires reached the first starfish. There was
no way around the things. No choice but to try climbing

over them.