"Peter F. Hamilton - Escape Route" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Peter F)

Escape Route

Peter F. Hamilton
A Short Story from тАУ Gardner Dozois (ed) - The Year's Best Science Fiction
15th Annual (1998)

Prolific new British writer Peter F. Hamilton has sold to Interzone, In Dreams, New Worlds,
Fears, and elsewhere. He sold his first novel, Mind star Rising, in 1993, and quickly followed it up
with two sequels, A Quantum Murder and The Nano Flower. Hamilton's first three books
managed to slip into print without attracting a great deal of attention, on this side of the Atlantic,
at least, but that changed dramatically with the publi cation of his next novel, The Reality
Dysfunction, a huge modern Space Opera (it needed to be divided into two volumes for
publication in the United States) that is itself only the start of a projected trilogy of staggering
size and scope. The Reality Dysfunction has been attracting the reviews and the acclaim that his
prior novels did not and has suddenly put Hamilton on the map as a writer to watch, perhaps a
potential rival for writers such as Dan Simmons, Iain M. Banks, Paul I. Mcauley, Greg Benford,
C. I. Cherryh, Stephen R. Donaldson, Colin Greenland, and other major players in the expanding
subgenre of Modern Baroque Space Opera, an increasingly popular area these days. The second
novel in the trilogy, The Neutronium Alchemist, is out in Britain, and generating the same kind of
excited critical buzz. Upcoming is the third novel in the trilogy, The Naked God, and Hamilton's
first collection, A Second Chance at Eden.
In the pyrotechnic novella that follows, one as packed with intriguing new ideas and
fast-paced action and suspense as many another author's four-hundred-page novel, he unravels
the mystery of an enigmatic object found in deep space, one that may prove to be harder-and
considerably more dangerous-to get out of than it was to get in ...
 Marcus Calvert had never seen an asteroid cavern quite like Sonora's before; it was disorientating
even for someone who had spent 30 years captaining a starship. The centre of the gigantic rock had been
hollowed out by mining machines, producing a cylindrical cavity twelve kilometres long, five in diameter.
Usually, the floor would be covered in soil and planted with fruit trees and grass. In Sonora's case, the
environmental engineers had simply flooded it. The result was a small freshwater sea that no matter where
you were on it, you appeared to be at the bottom of a valley of water.
Floating around the grey surface were innumerable rafts, occupied by hotels, bars, and restaurants.
Taxi boats whizzed between them and the wharfs at the base of the two flat cavern walls.
Marcus and two of his crew had taken a boat out to the Lomaz bar, a raft which resembled a
Chinese dragon trying to mate with a Mississippi paddle steamer.
"Any idea what our charter is, Captain?" asked Katherine Maddox, the Lady Macbeth's node
specialist.
"The agent didn't say," Marcus admitted. "Apart from confirming it's private, not corporate."
"They don't want us for combat, do they?" Katherine asked. There was a hint of rebellion in her
voice. She was in her late 40s, and like the Calverts her family had geneered their offspring to withstand
both freefall and high acceleration. The dominant modifications had given her thicker skin, tougher bones,
and harder internal membranes; she was never sick or giddy in freefall, nor did her face bloat up. Such
changes were a formula for blunt features, and Katherine was no exception.
"If they do, we're not taking it," Marcus assured her.
Katherine exchanged an unsettled glance with Roman Zucker, the ship's fusion engineer, and slumped
back in her chair.
The combat option was one Marcus had considered possible. Lady Macbeth was combat-capable,
and Sonora asteroid belonged to a Lagrange-point cluster with a strong autonomy movement. An
unfortunate combination. But having passed his 67th birthday two months ago be sincerely hoped those
kinds of flights were behind him.