"Robert L. Forward - Starquake" - читать интересную книгу автора (Forward Robert L)

After the humans had established contact and convinced the cheela that they were not gods, the Holy
Temple had been neglected and was slowly fading away into the landscape. The shape of the temple was
that of a cheela at full alert, a long ellipsoidal body, with the long direction aligned along the local direction
of the magnetic field, and twelve round eyes perched on short, exponentially tapered eye-stubs. After a
hundred generations of neglect, the ancient ruins had degenerated to twelve blobs that used to be eyes
and portions of wall mounds that had formed the rest of the body. Now, however, one of the eyes was
once again dark and round, while its eye-stub was easily visible in the telescope image.

Abdul thoughtfully twisted one black whisker tip with his fingers as he pondered the scene. "Looks like
they're fixing up the Holy Temple. Are they reverting to human worship?"

"Absolutely not." Seiko pronounced her verdict in the authoritative Teutonic tone she had learned from
her father. "They are too intelligent for that. Since they now have space travel, they must have looked
down and realized that the most visible structure on Egg looks rundown. Unless your neutrino and X-ray
detectors have responded to a crustquake recently, it must be some sort of historical renovation project."

"No big quakes lately," said Abdul. "So they must be doing this on purpose."

"It's about time," Seikohumphed in disapproval. "That is the trouble with egg-layers, especially those
that let the clan Old Ones raise the young. With no direct family ties through parents, they have no
personal links to history."

Seiko had had no sleep for the past 36 hours. She looked up to adjust the solar image telescope
controls to expand the view. The sudden motion made her head swim. She hit the wrong switch, and the
filter that blocked most of the light from the neutron star flicked open for an instant. Her eyes shut against
the glare.

"Seiko ... Seiko ..."

Seiko opened her heavy eyelids to see Dr. Cesar Wong holding her by the shoulders and peering
through the wisps of straight black hair that had fallen forward over her face. Floating next to him was
Abdul.

"I told her and I told her she shouldn't have skipped her last sleep break," Abdul said. "Maybe she'll
listen to you and take one this time."

"Seiko, my dear." Cesar's deep brown eyes showed concern. "You have driven yourself much too hard.
Please take a rest."

"Doctor Wong, I appreciate your concern. But I am not about to abandon my professional responsibility
at this critical juncture."

"WellтАФat least take a break and join with me in a cup of hot coffee in the galley." Dr. Wong took the
petite scientist gently by the arm. She allowed herself to be steered down the passageway to the bottom
deck. On the way through the middle deck, they passed Amalita and Pierre working the communications
console that talked directly to the cheela through the laser communication link.

Pierre was stretched out in free fall, his head and arms inside the communications console, while Amalita
was talking to the cheela on the star. The speaker was not a computer-slowed image of a real cheela, but