"Clarke, Arthur C - Odissey Two" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clarke Arthur C)

'They're making a rendezvous with Europa, aren't they?'

There was an explosive gasp of disbelief from the other end.

'Chyort voz'mi! How did you know?'

'I didn't - I've just guessed it.'

'There can't be any mistake - I've checked the figures to six places. The braking manoeuvre worked out exactly as they intended. They're right on course for Europa - it couldn't have happened by chance. They'll be there in seventeen hours.'

'And go into orbit.'

'Perhaps; it wouldn't take much propellant. But what would be the point?'

'I'll risk another guess. They'll do a quick survey - and then they'll land.'

'You're crazy - or do you know something we don't?'

'No - it's just a matter of simple deduction. You're going to start kicking yourself for missing the obvious.'

'Okay, Sherlock, why should anyone want to land on Europa? What's there, for heaven's sake?'

Floyd was enjoying his little moment of triumph. Of course, he might still be completely wrong.

'What's on Europa? Only the most valuable substance in the Universe.'

He had overdone it; Vasili was no fool, and snatched the answer from his lips.

'Of course - water!'

'Exactly. Billions and billions of tons of it. Enough to fill up the propellant tanks - go cruising around all the satellites, and still have plenty left for the rendezvous with Discovery and the voyage home. I hate to say this, Vasili - but our Chinese friends have outsmarted us again.

'Always assuming, of course, that they can get away with it.'



9

The Ice of the Grand Canal



Apart from the jet-black sky, the photo might have been taken almost anywhere in the polar regions of Earth; there was nothing in the least alien about the sea of wrinkled ice that stretched all the way out to the horizon. Only the five spacesuited figures in the foreground proclaimed that the panorama was of another world.

Even now, the secretive Chinese had not released the names of the crew. The anonymous intruders on the frozen Europan icescape were merely the chief scientist, the commander, the navigator, the first engineer, the second engineer. It was also ironic, Floyd could not help thinking, that everyone on Earth had seen the already historic photograph an hour before it reached Leonov, so much closer to the scene. But Tsien's transmissions were relayed on such a tight beam that it was impossible to intercept them; Leonov could receive only its beacon, broadcasting impartially in all directions. Even that was inaudible more than half the time, as Europa's rotation carried it out of sight, or the satellite itself was eclipsed by the monstrous bulk of Jupiter. All the scanty news of the Chinese mission had to be relayed from Earth.

The ship had touched down, after its initial survey, on one of the few islands of solid rock that protruded through the crust of ice covering virtually the entire moon. That ice was flat from pole to pole; there was no weather to carve it into strange shapes, no drifting snow to build up layer upon layer into slowly moving hills. Meteorites might fall upon airless Europa, but never a flake of snow. The only forces moulding its surface were the steady tug of gravity, reducing all elevations to one uniform level, and the incessant quakes caused by the other satellites as they passed and repassed Europa in their orbits. Jupiter itself, despite its far greater mass, had much less effect. The Jovian tides had finished their work aeons ago, ensuring that Europa remained locked forever with one face turned toward its giant master.

All this had been known since the Voyager flyby missions of the 1970s, the Galileo surveys of the 1980s, and the Kepler landings of the 1990s. But, in a few hours, the Chinese had learned more about Europa than all the previous missions combined. That knowledge they were keeping to themselves; one might regret it, but few would deny that they had earned the right to do so.