"Forward, Robert L - Rocheworld 02 - Return to Rocheworld - with Julie Forward Fuller 5.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Forward Robert L)

^It's odd!^ said the free Clear^White^Whistle.
^It's odd!^ said the suited Clear^White^Whistle at the same time.
() Being small will make you stupid, () warned Dainty()Blue()Warble, who had just had the experience of watching after a small stupid flouwen.
^Smart enough to hunt and feed and grow!^ insisted the free Clear^White^Whistle.
^Smart enough to learn and explore and look!^ said the suited Clear^White^Whistle.
^Think how large and smart and experienced I'll be when I get back together!^ they finished simultaneously.
Roaring*Hot*Vermillion knew when a challenge was issued. Taking another one of the bags, he poured inside it, hesitating only slightly as the zipper sealed up the suit.
Separating felt odd, and odder still was the thought that he was now only half as smart as he had been. For a moment he was reassured by the fact that he felt no dumber, but then he was crushed to realize that he was too stupid to tell the difference, and had proved his own idiocy by his momentary reassurance.
Strong||Lavender||Crackle took the last suit. Older and bigger than the others, the free portion was still rather large. Strong||Lavender||Crackle looked at the small suited subset and wished him luck. He felt as if he had made a new youngling, except this time he was the only parent.
||Take good care of yourself, Little Me.||
Little Purple was slightly annoyed at the proprietary attitude of his progenitor and silently resolved to show his other self a thing or two when they reconnected.
Dainty()Blue()Warble had no desire to return to infancy so soon after earning the respect of the rest of the pod. Agreeing to take the "free" halves out to feed while the suited flouwen explored the island, Dainty()Blue()Warble silently resolved never to make a youngling; for he had had more than enough of babysitting. He was tempted to ask them hard questions the way tutors had done to him, just so they would rock up and stay out of the way.
The newly shaped flouwen looked like over-sized bowling pins, rounded on the bottom like a child's punch toy. Two semi-globular lenses of plastic molded into their helmets held the same relative position as the eyes of a human. From ports in the neckring there extended three short "arm" sleeves ending in three-fingered "gloves". The glassy-foil in the sleeves and fingers had spring-loaded pleats so the reach and grasp could be augmented if necessary.
The suited flouwen soon learned to form pseudopods in the arms and gloves of the suit and practiced using them. They picked up rocks from the ocean floor, punched icons on the touchscreen, and unsealed and resealed their suits until the motions became sure and smooth. They found it was easy for them to swim through the ocean in their suits using their usual undulating body motion.
"Well, they have pretty much got the feel for operating the suits in ocean environments, so they definitely could be useful in exploring the ocean parts of some of the moons of Gargantua," said Sam, looking on critically. "Now let's see if they can move around on land without legs. Otherwise, we are going to have to roll them out the airlock and down the beach to the water on each visit."
Cinnamon called out to the three flouwen. "Okay, Little White, Little Red, and Little Purple, let's see if you can make your way up the beach and out of the surf. As soon as you feel sand underneath, try rolling along on your side while the waves are pushing you."
Sam and Tony moved behind Little White and slowly pushed the two hundred kilo flouwen onto its side. Because they were underwater and the gravity was only a twelfth of a gee, they had some trouble. They didn't have enough weight for leverage. Little White understood their objective and shifted his body within the suit so that he tipped over, leaving his "head" off to the side. The other two followed suit, and awkwardly they rolled up the gentle slope of the beach. They had a bit of trouble fighting past the retreating waves, but once they were beyond the surge of the surf, they climbed out of the water. Through the twin lenses in their helmets, they could see the surface of the water that had always been their home. They all stopped and turned upright, gazing back on this new view of the sea.
Little White was pivoting this way and that, using the plastic lenses to look around. Two lenses allowed him to triangulate and accurately judge his relative position to other objects. He resolved to teach his other self to form two lenses next time it wanted to look at something. If only the other self didn't figure that out in the meantime. Certainly it was a simple enough concept; he would have discovered it on his own had he given it more thought.
||Seems like we should say something special ... that we should commemorate the first time our people have come out from the sea.||
*Leave that sort of thing to people like Warm<>Amber<>Resonance, I always say.* Little Red grumbled, afraid that he could have thought of something good to mark the occasion back when he was larger.
"On this day, the flouwen left the cradle of the sea," said Cinnamon in her best orator voice.
The flouwen were silent, considering the phrase.
||Sounds impressive ...|| Little Purple conceded.
*What the GreyBoom is a cradle?* Little Red muttered quietly to himself.
Following Richard's lead, Shirley, Carmen, Caroline, and John strode off up the sandy beach and started climbing the gentle rise. The ground underfoot became rough and rocky as the sound of the surf retreated. Among the boulders, there were still signs of colored flouwen "rocks" from past generations. John made a mental note to gather samples of them from various levels to see if there were signs of changing flouwen development. For now though, it was more important to find a good place to sink a well that would safeguard the nuclear power source for the flouwen laser communication center.
This ridge was all that separated the lander from the sheltered cove that the flouwen had picked as the best place for installing the underwater touchscreen. They climbed slowly up the increasingly steep slope, and just as they topped the rise, the panorama of the cove was spread out before them.
The cove had a narrow beach; too thin to have allowed the _Falcon_ to land. Between them and the water's edge, the ground dropped off sharply, but slides indicated possible routes to the shore. Unfortunately they also indicated instability in the cliff that precluded drilling at the base. Still, the cove itself was perfect. Tiny waves lapped gently against the icy shore; the dark line a few feet out indicated the deeper waters that would remain deep even during the lowest tides that came during Rocheworld's close passage to Barnard every forty Earth days. Here the flouwen could use John's wonderful touchscreen in quiet safety.
John had spent many days working with James and Caroline on perfecting the touchscreen. Because the flouwen only used light for a secondary information input, John had augmented the video screen with a sonic pattern output. It encompassed the wide range of frequencies the flouwen had demonstrated during their various conversations during the previous visit to Rocheworld. The flouwen could also use touch to draw any figures that were necessary to explain their theories, and the internal computer in the touchscreen would be capable of interpreting models in either two, three or n dimensions. The touchscreen was even designed to sense chemical compounds and could transmit electric impulses that would partially simulate the chemical tastes that the flouwen use to trade information.
Richard looked around the cove with a practiced eye. "There's a small pond in a sandy depression over there. It should be suitable for burying the reactor. It's far enough from the ocean shore that even the highest storm waves won't uncover the reactor, and far enough from the cliffs that falling rocks won't cut the power cable. The only question is how deep the sand goes. We'll have to drill a core hole."
"Well, let's get to it, big boy. The days are short on this planet," Shirley said as she put down the heavy telescope and started down the slope with her load of perforated core tubes.
Caroline had been looking around too. She pointed to the high point in the ridge they were crossing. "That knob up there would be a good place for the laser transmitter and the autotracking telescope. The view from there would be nearly unobstructed and would allow good coverage of the sky. We can fire some explosive bolts into the rock to provide solid anchors for the telescope in case of high winds."
"You sure can pick them," Carmen groaned. She shifted her grip on the laser transmitter.
"I'll go ahead and anchor the telescope. Take a break and then start up after me," Caroline suggested.
John gave Carmen one of the reels of cable. "While you're resting, why don't I take the touchscreen down into the water while you unroll the cable." John moved down the slope to the still waters of the cove. When he reached the edge of the water he started to wade in.
"Do you want me to come with you?" Carmen called. She eyed the water apprehensively. Ever since most of her family died in the tidal wave that followed the 2018 earthquake, drowning had haunted her dreams.
"Don't bother," John said. "Save the heaters in your suit. The water here is plenty calm and I can see the antenna sticking up from the crawler. Run that wire up the hill to Caroline."
John strode confidently out into the water. The tiny wavelets lapped around his ankles. The cold bit at his toes before the suit heater kicked in. The walking was awkward until he let most of the extra air out of his suit. As the crinkly glassy-foil material pressed against his skin, John lost the buoyancy that had him trying to walk on the surface. Gradually the cold water rose, tightening the suit against his flesh.
The smooth surface of the water crept up the face of his helmet and for a moment John had a beautiful view half above and half below the surface of the water. He remembered Carmen telling him of her fear of drowning, and hoped that she would not pass up the chance to see the world bisected this way. He himself had no fear of the water; his mother had told him that he was born with a caul. As the waters met over the top of his helmet, his view of the ocean was imbued with two shades of green. They swirled about him, twisting and marbling, yet never intermingling.
~Is this a StiffMover? What is it doing?~
$Ask it yourself.$
~StiffMover? Is that another SkyTalker you carry? Is it like the one that the CrawlingRock brought?~
"I have come to replace the old one with this new one and take the old one back," John explained though his suit imp. "This one will last longer and is better made."
~If this one is better, why do you want to take the other one?~
$Maybe he wants to eat the animal.$ Sweet$Green$Fizz had been appalled to learn that this was what Shining~Chartreuse~Query had done to those early PrettySmells that had not lived up to its expectations. Shining~Chartreuse~Query said that this was so they would not reproduce and make more failures, but eating a pet seemed indecent to Sweet$Green$Fizz. It would be like Roaring*Hot*Vermillion eating one of his OrangeHunter pets.
"No. I don't want to eat it," John laughed. It was odd for the flouwen to hear the sounds of strange alien laughter coming from inside the spacesuit. "It isn't alive, but we do need to use its parts."
Sweet$Green$Fizz protested. $But it talked to us. If it talks, it must be intelligent. How can it be intelligent and not be alive?$
"It thinks using electricity moving through pieces of stone called silicon chips. As long as we are here, we might as well pick it up and take it back so we can use the silicon chips again."
~It is a made thing that thinks with electricity and pieces of stone and is intelligent but not alive and you can use its pieces?~ Shining~Chartreuse~Query started to rock up to think about these strange new concepts, then swelled back up again, knowing for certain that he wasn't massive enough to understand those concepts without a long period of concentrated thought. He would save them to work on later, maybe after a few turns of heavy meals to build up bulk.
The new underwater touchscreen was larger and more versatile than the first. Also, the surface of the touchscreen was smoother and better sealed since the Christmas Bush had had more time to work on the casing. The only protrusion was the thick power and communication cable coming out the back and running up onto the shore.
John was reluctant to leave the water and end this, his first contact with the flouwen. He waited patiently just under the water, admiring the flickering play of light against the gaudy rocks of those flouwen that even the landing of the _Falcon_ hadn't aroused. This close to the equator and on the outer pole, where the sun shone three hours out of every six hour day, the ocean was relatively warm and ammonia poor, but the high cliff on this side of the bay shaded the shallow water in the cove, allowing a thin film of crystalline water ice to form on the still surface near the middle. As the feeble sunlight refracted through the patterned ice to glint on the rocky bottom, John felt as if he was imprisoned in a crystal.