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

More memories flooded into his mind. They had achieved the artificial
consciousness to direct their ship . . . and it had whisked them far across
space to the Tau Ceti system.

Where there were no inhabitable planets.

Moonbase probes had made certain of that much earlier. No inhabitable planets.
It was part of the frustration built into the project. No Voidship could be
allowed to choose the long way to Tau Ceti sanctuary. Moonbase could not allow
that. It would be too tempting for the cloned crew -- breed our own
replacements, let our descendants find Tau Ceti. And to hell with Project
Consciousness! If they voted that course, the Chaplain/Psychiatrist was charged
to expose the empty goal and stand ready with the destruct button.

Win, lose or draw -- we were supposed to die.

And only the Chaplain/Psychiatrist had been allowed to suspect this. The serial
Voidships and their cloned cargo had one mission: gather information and send
it back to Moonbase.

Ship.

That was it, of course. They had created much more than consciousness in their
computer and its companion system which Bickel had called "the Ox." They had
made Ship. And Ship had whisked them across space in an impossible eyeblink.

Destination Tau Ceti.
That was, after all, the built-in command, the target programmed into their
computer. But where there had been no inhabitable planet, Ship had created one:
a paradise planet, an earth idealized out of every human dream. Ship had done
this thing, but then had come Ship's terrible demand: "You must decide how you
will WorShip Me!"

Ship had assumed attributes of God or Satan. Flattery was never sure which.
But he had sensed that awesome power even before the repeated demand.

"How will you WorShip? You must decide!"

Failure.

They never could satisfy Ship's demand. But they could fear. They learned a
full measure of fear.

"Tick."

He recognized that sound now: the dehyb timer/monitor counting off the
restoration of life to his flesh.

But who had set this process into motion?