"Mark S. Geston - The Allies" - читать интересную книгу автора (Geston Mark S)

dimensions and then restore them to their proper condition when we found a world
to sustain us. It was a task that had defied the most subtle artificial
intelligences during tests. To that moment, only the Fourth Ship seemed to have
done it, but she had vanished as intended so there was no way to be sure. We
believed the enemy did such things manually too, even though their cybernetics
were thought to be much more advanced than ours.

I successfully unfolded the first dimension. The screens on the readout pedestal
to my right instantly reported that the Ship attained the first measurable
fraction of the speed of light. Then I had to wait while enormous panels on her
exterior reconfigured themselves to a new shape that matched the altered reality
I had just constructed. That was good, because my hands were trembling from
excitement.

The Ship's Minds signaled for the second dimension to be unfolded and aligned
with the first. This was done, although there was a moment when I hesitated and
a subjective clock appeared on a large, previously dark screen at the other end
of the compartment, informing me that all of us would slip into an incomplete
reality if the work was not completed within the stated time.

The Ship changed shape again, this time more drastically. The Minds informed me
that there had been an attack but the enemy had not really known where we were
and their weapons fell far short.

After the appointed interval, I opened the third dimension. Now a functioning,
divergent reality was in place and the enemy could not touch us. The Ship's
subjective position in the universe abruptly changed, and its probabilistic
location relative to the Earth comprehended more than an equivalent third of the
speed of light.

The process continued over the next three subjective days, by which time the
Ship passed by seven solar systems. Then I was finished and left alone while the
Minds plotted the passage from one star system to another. I was no more alone
than I had been during my training on Earth, and found the situation agreeable.

After a subjective year, however, the Minds recommended that ten percent of the
people be awakened. They were troubled by anomalies in their physiological base
lines and speculated that the subconsciousness, left undefended by the waking
sell acutely sensed the void outside and was being eroded by it. I knew the
Ship's designers had planned for such a contingency. Up to half the people on
board could be sustained in a waking state by its systems if that was absolutely
necessary. Conditions would be abominable, but it could be done.
The clean and vacant corridors of the Ship became packed with badsmelling and
barely coherent people, most of whom seemed as displeased to see their fellows
awake as I secretly was. I was impressed, however, with the self-discipline most
of them showed. The Minds were probably right and they had vaguely perceived
something indescribable lurking outside, which had crept into them and left
behind an indelible chill upon awakening. I hoped the others would not be so
afflicted.