"Alan Dean Foster - Life Form" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

Walked the finest beach in the world
Dived the reefs still primeval
And more importantly, shared silent wonders, quiet
moments, and good humor.
He also ainтАЩt a bad field cook.
With many thanks and best wishes to him
And blessings upon his good wife and progeny.
 I
Twenty-four hours to wake up, and in all that time you didnтАЩt
even get to yawn once.
Stevens studied the monitors, his practiced gaze flicking
successively from one readout and screen to the next. Eventually
his eyes came to rest on the vids that monitored their somnolent
cargo. There was a separate pickup for each capsule, separate
readouts for each individual life-support system.
Revivication/awakening procedures had just reached the
ten-hour mark, with fourteen still to go. No yawning, no rubbing
your eyes. It was a delicate, instrument-intensive process. When
someoneтАЩs been in deep sleep for over a year you donтАЩt just set off
an alarm clock next to their ear and expect them to pop up
inquiring if theyтАЩre late for the morning commute to work.
Actually, their work was doing the commuting for them.
There were four worlds circling the central G-type star, which
its optimistic Brazilian discoverers had enthusiastically named Xica
da Silva, or Xica, for convenienceтАЩ sake. The outermost was a gas
giant, a lonely but colorful banded sentinel the size of Neptune. It
had collected five moons, all interesting but dead, and was flanked
inside and out by a pair of asteroid belts. The two innermost
worlds were scorched and torn by clashing tectonic forces, broken
paving stones on the path outward from the sun.
Xica IIIтАж Xica da SilvaтАж was a possible miracle.
One of many similar long-lived mechanical servants of
humankind entrusted with the Long Ride Out, the Xica probe had
reported back the presence of a breathable atmosphere, reasonable
gravity, and oceans of hydrogen dioxide. Despite the dispatching of
dozens of identical devices, these conditions had been encountered
only twice before outside the solar system. The probe subsequently
strongly suggested but could not confirm the presence on the two
main land masses of a biota of consequence.
As nothing more advanced than primitive fungi, lichens, and
segmented worms had been found on Tycho V or Burke, when the
prospects for Xica were reported, competition among qualified
scientists for places on the James Cook grew more than spirited,
with several notably sedate individuals coming to blows once the
final selections had been announced. Stevens hadnтАЩt been involved.
Though he had a deep interest in exploration, he was no scientist.
Somebody had to drive the truck while the brains rode in back,
arguing over prospective Nobels and Sakharovs. That task fell to
him. Him and Lastwell.
He swiveled slightly in his seat to regard the captain. The two