"John Dalmas - Yngling 2 - Homecoming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dalmas John)

Homecoming

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I
Nikko Kumalo seldom saw the bridge on night watch, and its beauty affected her. It was
тАЬnightтАЭ now by the shipтАЩs chronometer and their own circadian rhythms, and all
passageway lights were muted accordingly. The bridge itself was lit mainly by the cool
luminescent characters on the black computer screen and dim blue night lights in the
bulkheads, with an overall effect of soft velvet. Ram had cut off the unobtrusive wake
tone that kept the bridge watch alert in the dimness, and it seemed to Nikko that to
speak would break a spell.

On the viewscreen were two other lights, gibbous demi-discs bright and prominent
against a backdrop of black space. Her eyes fixed on them and she knew what they were.

Ram spoke quietly. тАЬYou said to call you.тАЭ

тАЬTheyтАЩre beautiful, Ram, just beautiful.тАЭ Her husband Matthew, standing beside her,
said nothing, just looked at Earth and its satellite. After more than seven centuries, men
from New Home were looking at the planet from which their ancestors had come. Back
in normal space after weeks in jump phase, they could measure her distance in millions
of kilometers instead of parsecs.

He shivered. What would they find there? Something drastic had happenedтАФmust have
happenedтАФlong ago to have ended without warning all traffic between the mother
planet and her then still infant primary colony. Blue and white showed on the screenтАФ
there were still seas and clouds. Perhaps a virulent disease or transstellar conquerors
were waiting for them, as the geophobes back home had feared. Right now, he thought,
we know no more than when we raised ship, except that Earth is still here, still blue and
white in space. Later today weтАЩll begin to find out other things.

So many generations had lived and died since his many-times removed great
grandparents had left Earth that he hadnтАЩt expected to feel this much emotion. Briefly in
the muted darkness, all four stared at the viewscreen, Nikko and Matthew hand in hand,
Ram and the computerman in their duty seats, seeing what men from New Home had
seen only in their imaginations since the last ship from Earth had left it 780 New Home
years before.

The culture of New Home was basically agrarian, and its people in general were calm

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Homecoming

and methodical. So planetary analyses waited until general duty hours to begin. The
analyses were much the same as those made by the ancient charting shipsтАФthe
Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. But this time they were not being made routinely,