"Arthur C Clarke - Stephen Baxter - The Light of Other DaysUC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clarke Arthur C)

Prologue

Bobby could see the Earth, complete and serene,
within its cage of silver tight.

Fingers of green and blue pushed into the new deserts
of Asia and the North American Midwest. Artificial reefs
glimmered in the Caribbean, pale blue against the deeper
ocean. Great wispy machines labored over the poles to
repair the atmosphere. The air was clear as glass, for
now mankind drew its energy from the core of Earth
itself.

And Bobby knew that if he chose, with a mere effort
of will, he could look back into time.

He could watch cities bloom on Earth's patient sur-
face, to dwindle and vanish like rusty dew. He could see
species shrivel and devolve like leaves curling into their
buds. He could watch the slow dance of the continents
as Earth gathered its primordial heat back into its iron
heart. The present was a glimmering, expanding bubble
of life and awareness, with the past locked within,
trapped unmoving like an insect in amber.

For a long time, on this rich, growing Earth, embed-
ded in knowledge, an enhanced humankind had been at
peace: a peace unimaginable when he was born.

And all of this had derived from me ambition of one
manЧa venal, flawed man, a man who had never even
understood where his dreams would lead.

How remarkable, he thought.

Bobby looked into his past, and into his heart.

THE GOLDFISH BOWL

We .. . know how cruel the truth Soften is, and we
wonder whether delusion is not more consoling.

ЧHenri Poincare (18S4-1912)

1

THE CASIMIR ENGINE

A little after dawn, Vitaly Keldysh climbed stiffly into
his car, engaged the SmartDrive, and let the car