"Frank Herbert - Destination Void 2 The Jesus Incident" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

creating an artificial consciousness.

Dangerous work. Very dangerous. Artificial consciousness had a long history of
turning against its creators. It went rogue with ferocious violence. Even many
of the uncloned had perished in agony.

Nobody could say why.

But the project's directors at Moonbase were persistent. Again and again, they
sent the same cloned crew into space. Features flashed into Flattery's mind as
he thought the names: a Gerrill Timberlake, a John Bickel, a Prue Weygand. . .
.

Raja Flattery . . . Raja Lon Flattery.

He glimpsed his own face in a long-gone mirror: fair hair, narrow features . .
. disdainful . . .
And the Voidships carried others, many others. They carried cloned Colonists,
gene banks in hyb tanks. Cheap flesh to be sacrificed in distant explosions
where the uncloned would not be harmed. Cheap flesh to gather data for the
uncloned. Each new venture into the void went out with a bit more information
for the wakeful umbilicus crew and those encased in hyb . . .

-- As I am encased now.

Colonists, livestock, plants -- each Voidship carried what it needed to create
another Earth. That was the carrot luring them onward. And the ship -- certain
death if they failed to create an artificial consciousness. Moonbase knew that
ships and clones were cheap where materials and inexpensive energy were abundant
. . . as they were on the moon.

"Tick."

Who is bringing me out of hybernation?

And why?

Flattery thought about that while he tried to extend his globe of awareness into
the unresponsive darkness.

Who? Why?

He knew that he had failed to blow up his ship after it had exhibited
consciousness . . . using Bickel as an imprint on the computer they had built .
..

I did not blow up the ship. Something prevented me from . . .

Ship!