"Greg Egan - Glory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Egan Greg)

тАЬMy name is Anne. I come from another star.тАЭ

There was a long pause, then a different voice answered. тАЬIf you are from Ghahar, please explain your
intentions.тАЭ
тАЬI am not from Ghahar.тАЭ

тАЬWhy should I believe that? Show yourself.тАЭ

тАЬIтАЩve taken the same shape as your people, in the hope of living among you for a while.тАЭ Anne opened a
video channel and showed them her un-remarkable Noudah face. тАЬBut thereтАЩs a signal being transmitted
from these coordinates that might persuade you that IтАЩm telling the truth.тАЭ She gave the location of the
decoy node, twenty light-years away, and specified a fre-quency. The signal coming from the node
contained an image of the very same face.

This time, the silence stretched out for several minutes. It would take a while for the Tirans to confirm the
true distance of the radio source.

тАЬYou do not have permission to land. Please enter this orbit, and we will rendezvous and board your
ship.тАЭ

Parameters for the orbit came through on the data channel. Anne said, тАЬAs you wish.тАЭ

Minutes later, JoanтАЩs instruments picked up three fusion ships being launched from Tiran bases. When
Anne reached the prescribed orbit, Joan listened anxiously to the instructions the Tirans issued. Their
tone sounded wary, but they were entitled to treat this stranger with caution, all the more so if they
believed AnneтАЩs claim.

Joan was accustomed to a very different kind of reception, but then the members of the Amalgam had
spent hundreds of millennia establishing a framework of trust. They also benefited from a milieu in which
most kinds of force had been rendered ineffectual; when everyone had backups of themselves scattered
around the galaxy, it required a vastly disproportion-ate effort to inconvenience someone, let alone kill
them. By any reasonable measure, honesty and cooperation yielded far richer rewards than subter-fuge
and slaughter.

Nonetheless, each individual culture had its roots in a biological heritage that gave rise to behavior
governed more by ancient urges than contempo-rary realities, and even when they mastered the
technology to choose their own nature, the precise set of traits they preserved was up to them. In the
worst case, a species still saddled with inappropriate drives but empowered by advanced technology
could wreak havoc. The Noudah deserved to be treated with courtesy and respect, but they did not yet
belong in the Amalgam.

The TiransтАЩ own exchanges were not on open channels, so once they had entered AnneтАЩs ship Joan
could only guess at what was happening. She waited until two of the ships had returned to the surface,
then sent her own message to GhaharтАЩs traffic control.

тАЬI come in peace from another star. I seek permission to land.тАЭ

****