"Alan Dean Foster - The Black Hole" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

THE BLACK HOLE
BY ALAN DEAN FOSTER
A Del Rey Book
Published by Ballantine Books
Copyright ┬й 1979 Walt Disney Productions
ISBN 0-345-28538-7
First Edition: December 1979
Cover art courtesy of Walt Disney Productions




тАЬThere are more things in Heaven
and Earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philoso-
phy.тАЭ
тАФHamlet, Prince of Denmark

тАЬStars with trains of fire and dews of
blood,
Disasters in the sun.тАЭ
тАФHoratio, Soldier of Denmark




1

THE Universe bubbled and seethed to overflowing with paradoxes, Harry
Booth knew. One of the most ironic was that the mere observation of its
wonders made a man feel older than his time, when, instead, it should have
made him feel young, filled with the desire for exploration.
Take himself, for example. He was an inhabitant of the years
euphemistically called тАЬmiddle age.тАЭ Mentally the label meant nothing. His
body felt as limber and healthy as when he had graduated from the
university, though his mind had adopted the outlook of a wizened
centenarianтАФa centenarian who had seen too much.
CтАЩmon, Harry, he admonished himself. Cut it out. ThatтАЩs wishful
thinking. You want to sound like the all-knowing old sage of space. Your
problem is you still have the perception as well as the physical sense of
well-being of a university student. Imagine yourself the inheritor of the
skills of Swift and Voltaire, if you must, but you know darn well youтАЩll
never write anything that makes you worthy of sharpening the pencils of
such giants. Be satisfied with what you are: a reasonably competent, very
lucky journalist.
Lucky indeed, he reminded himself. Half the reporters of Earth would
have permanently relinquished use of their thirty favorite invectives for a
chance to travel with one of the deep-space life-search ships. How you,
Harry Booth, ended up on the Palomino when far better men and women
languished behind merely to report its departure from Earth orbit is a