"Hogan, James P - Every Child Is Born A Scientist" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

When the victim has been battered to a pulp and stripped of every shred of dignity, he becomes highly suggestible and will respond eagerly to even a slight gesture of friendship. Prison guards had been well versed in the technique throughout history. And Corrigan understood psychology well; he knew what made people tick all right.

His tone softened a fraction. "Everyone's out of step except you, Dr. Clifford. We're all a team here, trying to do a good job. Why make it difficult? Once you make the effort to fit in, you might find that life's not really that bad.

"Don't you feel you owe it to this country and all it stands for-the way of life we all believe in? Isn't it worth a few sacrifices to protect all that? Right now half the world out there is sitting and waiting for us to ease up for just one second so they can blow us all off the face of this planet. Are you just going to sit there and let it happen? Do you want them to come walking in here without having to lift a finger?" Corrigan finished on a note that oozed all-in-it-togetherness. "Or are you gonna join the team, do your share, and help us go out there and zap those bastards?"

Clifford had turned white. Corrigan and his propaganda epitomized everything abhorrent in a world that was going insane. And now he was expecting to enlist Clifford in the ranks of the mindless, brainwashed millions who had toiled and bled and died believing that line ever since the world began. There would always be Corrigans to ride on the backs of the masses-for as long as there were willing backs to carry them. Clifford's voice fell to a whisper as he fought to control the anger that boiled inside, churning his stomach and bubbling up into the back of his throat like waves of nausea.

"I'm not interested in zapping anybody, mister . . not for you or for whatever you represent. Your system put me here; don't you tell me I'm screwed up now because I don't belong. Don't you tell me I owe anything to your system to help straighten out its mess. Save your garbage for the morons." Without waiting for a reply he got up and strode toward the door. Edwards and Massey remained silent, staring fixedly at the table. If Brad was flushing himself down the tubes, they weren't going to get caught in any of the backsplash.

Clifford, still shaking when he slammed the door of his office behind him five minutes later, began hammering a brief code into the keyboard of the desk terminal. At least he had tried the official channel. The outcome hadn't really been a surprise; that was why he had already prepared a long file in the data bank, ready for immediate transmission.

A woman's face appeared on the screen.

"Message Center. Can I help you?"

"I need an immediate outgoing channel. The destination code is 090909-73785-213 18."

The woman began keying the code automatically, then hesitated.

"Triple-09 prefix is extraterrestrial, sir-for the lunar bases."

"I know."

"I'm sorry, but those channels need special authorization from grade 5 or over. Do you have a clearance reference?"

All the frustrations of the last half-hour boiled over. "Listen, damn it, and store this on file. This is absolutely top priority. I take full responsibility. I don't care if you need clearance from the President, the Pope, or God Almighty himself. GET ME THAT DAMN CHANNEL!"

Chapter 3

Proxima Centauri, 4.3 light-years away from us, has at least three planets of significant size, the largest of them having a mass of 0.0018 times that of the sun and an orbital period of 137 years. Slightly farther away, at 6.0 light-years, Barnard's Star again has at least three planetary companions, B1, B2, and B3, of masses 0.0011, 0.0008, and 0.0003, periods 26, 12, and 14.3 years respectively; we strongly suspect others as well. Beyond these systems, the stars Lalande 211A, 61Cygni, and Kruger 60A, to name just three, also possess planets that have been positively observed and whose main properties have been accurately measured. In fact, more than thirty planets of stars other than our own sun are known to exist within a radius of twenty light-years from us."

Professor Heinrich Zimmermann pointed out the last item on the list and then turned away from the three-dimensional model of the local regions of the galaxy to look directly into the camera. The camera trolley rolled noiselessly forward to close in on his tall, immaculately dressed figure, dignified by a lean, angular build and a crown of silvery hair.

"Thus some of our work here at the Joliot-Curie Observatories on Lunar Farside has added immensely to our knowledge of the Sun's neighboring planetary systems. If these statistics are extrapolated to cover the whole galaxy, they indicate the existence of billions of planets. If only one in every thousand were to be similar to Earth in temperature and surface chemistry, we are still left with millions of worlds on which life as we know it could emerge. Furthermore, as you saw earlier, the emergence of life is not, as was once supposed, a billion-to-one freak occurrence; as the experiments of such scientists as Okoyaku and Skovensen have shown, it is virtually a certainty once the right conditions are established." He stepped aside to allow a zoom-in for a close-up of the model while he delivered his final words. "I will leave you to draw your own conclusions as to the implications of these statements. Despite the exciting things that we have seen in this program, it could be that the real excitement is yet to come."

"Okay. Cut it there." The floor director's voice sounded from the wall of darkness behind the arc lights. "That was fine. Take a short break, but be ready for another take of the first part of sequence 5 in five minutes. Harry and Mike, don't go rushing off anyplace-I need to talk to you for a second."

The lights dimmed and a hubbub of voices broke out on all sides. The floor around Zimmermann was transformed into an arena of bustling technicians. He paused to allow his eyes to readjust to the comparative gloom of normal lighting, acknowledged the thanks from the film team, and moved away from all the activity to stand by one of the dome's viewing ports. While he dabbed his forehead lightly with a pocket handkerchief, he stared silently out at the harsh, bleak landscape of the lunar surface.

Beyond the litter of assorted engineering and latticework that marked the environs of the observatory Complex and base, the soft, rolling dunes of ash-gray dust lay seared beneath the direct rays of lunar noon, pitted here and there by the ink-black shadow of the occasional crag or boulder. Above the featureless horizon, a million blazing jewels lay scattered on a carpet of velvet infinity. Joliot-Curie was without exception the loneliest center of human habitation in the universe. Here, shielded by the body of the Moon itself from Earth's incessant outpouring of electronic caterwauling, gigantic radio dishes listened for the whisperings that brought the secrets of the cosmos; unhampered by any atmosphere and all but free of the weight-induced distortions that had crippled their Earth-bound predecessors, enormous optical telescopes probed the very limits of the observable universe. The Joliot-Curie observatory complex was distant; it was isolated, but it was free-a surviving outpost of unfettered science where the pursuit of knowledge constituted its own ends.

A shadow from behind him darkened the wall by the side of the viewing port. Zimmermann turned to find Gus Craymer standing there; Craymer was Assistant Producer of Exploding Horizons-the documentary they were making. Craymer peered past the professor to take in the scene from the outside and pulled a face.

"How come you guys don't go nuts in this place?" he asked. Zimmermann followed his gaze, and then turned back smiling faintly.

"Oh, you would be surprised, Mr. Craymer. The solitude and peace can be quite stimulating. It really depends on what you see when you look out there. Remember the rhyme about the two men and the prison bars? I wonder sometimes that you don't all go nuts on Earth."

"You see stars, huh," Craymer grinned. "Literally." He indicated the far side of the room with a nod of his head. "There's coffee going over there if you'd like some." Zimmermann folded the handkerchief and replaced it in his breast pocket.