"David Drake - The World Turned Upside Down" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

тАФEric Flint
March 2004
 Rescue Party
by Arthur C. Clarke
Preface by Eric Flint

I'm certain this wasn't the first science fiction story I ever read, because I still remember those vividly.
Three novels, all read when I was twelve years old and living in the small town of Shaver Lake (pop.
500) in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California: Robert Heinlein'sCitizen of the Galaxy, Tom
Godwin'sThe Survivors and Andre Norton'sStar Rangers.

I must have started reading Arthur C. Clarke soon thereafter, though. The two stories that introduced me
to himтАФas I remember, anywayтАФwere this one and "Jupiter V," and those two stories fixed Clarke
permanently as one of the central triad in my own personal pantheon of SF's great writers. (The other
two being Robert Heinlein and Andre Norton.)

We chose this one, rather than "Jupiter V," at my request. I wanted this one because, of all the stories
ever written in science fiction, this is the one which first demonstrated to me that science fiction could be
inspirational as well as fascinating. So I thought at the age of twelve or possibly thirteen. More than four
decades have now gone by, and I haven't changed my mind at all.




Who was to blame? For three days Alveron's thoughts had come back to that question, and still he had
found no answer. A creature of a less civilized or a less sensitive race would never have let it torture his
mind, and would have satisfied himself with the assurance that no one could be responsible for the
working of fate. But Alveron and his kind had been lords of the Universe since the dawn of history, since
that far distant age when the Time Barrier had been folded round the cosmos by the unknown powers
that lay beyond the Beginning. To them had been given all knowledgeтАФand with infinite knowledge went
infinite responsibility. If there were mistakes and errors in the administration of the galaxy, the fault lay on
the heads of Alveron and his people. And this was no mere mistake: it was one of the greatest tragedies
in history.

The crew still knew nothing. Even Rugon, his closest friend and the ship's deputy captain, had been told
only part of the truth. But now the doomed worlds lay less than a billion miles ahead. In a few hours, they
would be landing on the third planet.

Once again Alveron read the message from Base; then, with a flick of a tentacle that no human eye could
have followed, he pressed the "General Attention" button. Throughout the mile-long cylinder that was the
Galactic Survey Ship S9000, creatures of many races laid down their work to listen to the words of their
captain.

"I know you have all been wondering," began Alveron, "why we were ordered to abandon our survey
and to proceed at such an acceleration to this region of space. Some of you may realize what this
acceleration means. Our ship is on its last voyage: the generators have already been running for sixty
hours at Ultimate Overload. We will be very lucky if we return to Base under our own power.
 "We are approaching a sun which is about to become a Nova. Detonation will occur in seven hours,
with an uncertainty of one hour, leaving us a maximum of only four hours for exploration. There are ten