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

Voidhawk Base Habitats
 A slight misnomer, as voidhawks are rarely based at Saturn. The 268 habitats in orbit
around Saturn serve as an industrial center, nursery, crew-training academy and
retirement home for the hundred families. They orbit 300,000km above Saturn, just
outside the rings, and deploy the same kind of magnetosphere pick-up cables used by
Jupiter-orbiting habitats. The most visible external difference is the lack of
starscrapers; instead people live in polyp residences inside the cavern. As a
consequence, their population is lower than inside their habitats, with 500,000
residents maximum.

The industrial stations based at Saturn are primarily involved in astroengineering; in
constructing and maintaining the voidhawk life-support quarters and cargo bay, as
well as building ancillary craft such as ground-to-orbit flyers. There is also a
considerable armaments division, providing combat wasps for voidhawks on duty
with the Confederation Navy and for habitat defense duties.

Saturn is not the only gas giant whose rings provide suitable nesting grounds for
voidhawks. Both Corellstal and Bagarasnin have ring systems which are used by
Edenists to propagate voidhawks, though Saturn still produces the majority of these
ships.


The Hundred Families
Thus are named the original commercial enterprises involved with developing
voidhawks, and the term now refers to both the voidhawk and human branches of the
endeavor. On its human side each family is basically a loosely tied merchant house
trading as it pleases, with He3contracts distributed on an equal basis. Their combined
fleet strength is currently in excess of 400,000 voidhawks.

Originally there were only a hundred different types of voidhawkтАФone each per
family. But genetic refinement by SaturnтАЩs bitek laboratories as well as crossbreeding
has improved the species considerably. New improvements are still being made, with
most of the research focusing on how to extend the life of the patterning cells and
therefore the overall lifespan.

The humans of the hundred families have undergone extensive geneering to adapt
their bodies for prolonged periods of spaceflight. Although they donтАЩt have to endure
the kind of free-fall exposure experienced by Adamist starship crews, they have
nonetheless followed similar lines of physiological development, and given
themselves physiques resistant to atrophy and organ decay, capable of withstanding
high-gee acceleration, and immunity to zero-gee sickness. They do not suffer from
spatial disorientation, although like all humans they prefer a visual horizon; and they
have a high level of radiation cancer immunity.

After a voidhawk matures, the family will fund construction of its mechanical
systems, which the captain will pay off, typically, in ten to fifteen years. There is no
formal requirement to serve in the Confederation Navy, though most captains chose
to serve at least one tour of duty, lasting seven years.