"Peter F. Hamilton - A Night's Dawn Companion - The Confederation Handbook" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Peter F)

Transferred personalities remain accessible on an individual level, helping to remove
the trauma of parental and grandparental death from children and even from adults. It
has been noted that, after a century or so, it becomes difficult to rouse some
individual personalities from immersion within the multiplicity. Ultimately the
merging becomes irreversible. However, other individuals have been known to retain
their complete distinct identity for centuries, most noticeably Wing-Tsit Chong
himself.


Genetic Engineering
Edenist life expectancy is currently in excess of 160 years. The Edenists of 2600 are
the product of considerable and methodical geneering dating right back to the
founding of their culture and, unlike Adamists, their overall modification program is
still continuing. Adult Edenists require only four hours of sleep every twenty-four
hours, their sensorium clarity is higher, high tolerance to pain is built in, and life
expectancy rises a few years with every generation.

One of their major physiological divergences from the Adamists is the adaptation of
Edenist bodies to low- and zero-gee environments because of the large numbers who
work outside the habitats in microgee industrial stations. Vertigo and free-fall
disorientation have been banished from Edenists; they require no visual horizon
reference in zero-gee. Also their bodies are immune to zero-gee atrophy: bones do not
waste, blood-cell balance remains unchanged, alterations to veins and capillaries and
arteries prevent the pooling of blood in the head, taste and smell are retained at near
full sensitivity. This faculty causes them to regard both the boosted and cosmoniks
(there are no Edenist cosmoniks) with some pity. The descendants of the hundred
families from whom voidhawk crews are traditionally drawn have taken their
modification a stage further than the Edenist norm. Their internal membranes are
strengthened to hold organs in place during high-gee acceleration, and heart
efficiency has been increased to ensure that a regular blood supply is maintained, thus
preventing blackouts; they are capable of enduring three gees for days at a time,
although this still does not bring them level with the tolerance of boosted blackhawk
crews (see Blackhawks,page 63 ). The largest area of Edenist genetic research is
currently concentrated on giving humanity a body immunity to radiation exposure, or
at least the ability to recover from it. Although highly resistant to ordinary varieties of
cancer, Edenists exposed to high levels of radiation in space remain susceptible to it.
Like Adamists, they tend to deposit their germ plasm into storage at the start of their
careers.

Atlantian Edenists have received extensive specialist genetic modification to cope
with their unique environment, and are visually easy to identify. Their corium
includes extra glands which produce an oil that renders the epidermis water-resistant.
The subcutaneous fat layer has been thickened to provide greater thermal insulation.
Toe length has been doubled, and toes are webbed; fingers are half-webbed. Their
blood has a high level of hemoglobin, so they can swim for long periods under water.


Exowombs and Reproduction
Exowombs are used extensively, though not exclusively. Most Edenist women will
have one in-body pregnancy, which tends to be when young, aged twenty-one to