"Hogan, James P - The Genesis Machine p260-end" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

room any moment. I could forget it like I could forget a cobra in my bed . . . .У He looked back at Cleary. УWhatТs to stop its power-supply system from going faulty? HowТs it supposed to be able to tell the difference between a line just failing and somebody pulling it out?Ф
УActually the risk of anything like that is so near zero that you can forget it,Ф Cleary said in a voice that was calm and unperturbed. УEverything in Brunnermont was designed and constructed to the strictest military standards. The technology throughout features the most advanced concepts of reliability engineering, triple redundancy, and self-checking known. Every subsystem works on triple voting and has at least one backup that switches on automatically if a fault is detected. Even if outside power is cut off for any reason, its own generating complex will keep it running for years if need be. Any combination of component failures, right up to impossibly unlikely levels, can be tolerated for way beyond the worst-case repair times.Ф He paused for everyone to digest these remarks, then went on.
УWhat it does mean is that if and when faults do develop, and common sense dictates that we have to assume they will, those faults will have to be fixed and fixed good.. . without any messing around.Ф
УThatТs one of the other things weТve also begun working on already,Ф Foreshaw told them. УWeТre talking to the manufacturers and outside contractors that were involved in all aspects of the system so that we can get together a permanent team of highly trained maintenance engineers to be permanently resident on the Brunnermont site. A first-aid team has already been put in to cover in the meantime.Ф
УTo summarize, the system is as near fail-proof as

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makes no difference, and itТs tamper-proof,Ф Cleary rounded off.
General Carlohm spoke next. УSo we still havenТt solved the problem of our attack arm. But why are we assuming all the time that it has to be based on the J-bomb at all? After all, we got along okay before we had it. ThereТs nothing to stop us building up our conventional ORBS and missile deterrents again. ItТll cost us an arm and a leg, but . . . if thatТs what we have to do, itТs what we have to do.Ф
УIТm afraid there is something to stop you.Ф Cleary was beginning to sound apologetic. УYou see, the Brunnermont surveillance programs are very sophisticated. They can identify the characteristics and trajectories of an attack profile and distinguish an offensive missile from, say, a regular suborbital aircraft, space shot, or satellite orbit. You could set up another deterrent system, sure, just as the other side can, but the moment either of you tried to use it, youТd trigger off the watchdog. You saw what happened yesterday; nothing would get through if either side launched any kind of offensive missile strike against the other.Ф
УItТs back to the last century again then,Ф Carlohm growled. УWeТll have to start building B-52s again.Ф
УNow, you know that would be crazy,Ф Foreshaw responded. УFor one thing, todayТs forms of conventional defense would leave any kind of classical attack like that with no chance; it would be like attacking machine guns with cavalry. And for another, the sheer numerical superiority of the East means we could never think of taking them on in any kind of unlimited war along the lines of 1939Ч45. Doing so would be suicide.Ф
УCruise missiles then?Ф Carlohm suggested. Foreshaw looked at Cleary. Cleary shook his head.
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УNot when you think about it,Ф Cleary said: УCruise missiles were low-cost, mass-produced weapons designed to be used in large numbers to saturate the defenses. A saturation-attack profile would be easy to identify and the J-bomb would break it up in minutes. If you tried to conceal the pattern by sending them over piecemeal, conventional defenses would be able to pick them off easily. Not feasible.Ф
УBiological weapons then?Ф Carlohm tried. УGas
Х . . bugs. . . viruses . . . anything. . . ?У
УToo uncontrollable; too unpredictable,Ф Foreshaw pronounced УWe abandoned that line years ago and so has the other side. ThereТs nothing to be gained for either of us by wiping out the whole planet. I canТt see that being resurrectedЧnot in a million years.Ф
As Sherman listened to the exchange going on around him the horizons of his understanding slowly broadened to encompass the full meaning of the thing that Clifford had done. For the first time since he had last seen Clifford earlier that morning, he comprehended the reason for the light of triumph that had burned behind the scientistТs tired eyes. At that time, Sherman had come away still somewhat shaken by the tide of recent events, but at a deeper level excited and exultant, eager to commence at once with the rebuilding of a new and sane world upon the foundations of salvation and opportunity that had been offered. No possibility could have been more remote than that all men could be anything but similarly inspired and exalted.
He saw now that, in spite of his worldliness and his years, he had been naive; only the scientist, as befitted his calling, had seen and understood the true reality. He heard the words that men had uttered for a thousand years and he listened to minds that wallowed in the clay of a lifetimeТs conditioning and stereotyping.
It was a microcosm of a world that would never learn. And as he listened and his eyes opened, he marveled
at the perfection of the web that the scientist had spun. Every question that was being asked had been anticipated; every twist and turn that the human mind could devise to escape from the maze was blocked; every objection had been forestalled. It was beautiful in its completeness.
Donald Reyes slumped back in his chair and slammed his hand down on the table in a gesture that finally signaled defeat.
Foreshaw then summed up the situation. УThe East cannot hope to succeed in any form of offensive action against the West, nuclear or otherwise, because the J-bomb will stop them. We canТt attack them with the J-bomb at all, and we canТt attack them with any kind of missile strike because if we do the bomb will stop that. We can attack with outdated weapons if we like, but we wonТt because weТd be sure to come off worst.
УThe East canТt break the deadlock in any way at all. We can break the deadlock, but only by trying to switch off the machine; however, we wonТt do that either because weТd wipe out practically all of our armed forces if we didЧand be left with nothing to attack with anyway. And as long as it stays switched on, nobody can build another J-bomb.Ф
УAnd it will stay like that until it self-deactivates
Х one hundred and eleven years from now,Ф Cleary completed.
A solemn silence descended upon the room.
УItТs just sitting there under those mountains,Ф Reyes fumed after a while. УIt wonТt switch off and we canТt switch it off. ItТs . . .У he sought for the words, УitТs like one of those movie things . . . a Doomsday Machine. . . only this is the granddaddy of all of them.Ф
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УHardly, Don,Ф Sherman remarked affably. УDoomsday Machines are supposed to guarantee the end of the world. IТd say that this does exactly the opposite.Ф
УWell, I guess the opposite of the end of the world is the beginning of the world,Ф Foreshaw mused. УWhatТs it called. . . ? Genesis . . .У
УThen thatТs what it is,Ф Sherman declared. УA Genesis Machine.Ф He looked slowly around the circle of faces. УDonТt you think youТre all missing the point? ThereТs one obvious alternative strategy that nobodyТs asked about yet. After what nearly happened yesterday, itТs the only thing that we ought to be talking about.Ф
Perplexed looks greeted his imploring gaze.
УYouТve all been living under the threat for so long that you canТt wake up to the fact that it isnТt there any more,Ф he said. УYouТve been hooked on missiles and bombs for as long as you can remember, and the idea of getting along without them just doesnТt get through. ItТs over. CanТt you get that into your heads? We donТt need it any moreЧany of it. Everything that the West has publicly claimed to want for the last fifty years has happened. DoesnТt it occur to you that we might be able to do something constructive with all those armaments budgets now?Ф
He stood up and made it plain that his part in the meeting was finished. Before turning toward the door, he concluded: УI am going out to take a long, quiet walk. You are going to stay here and start talking about how the people in this world are going to find ways of getting along with one another. It might be new to you, but youТre just gonna damn well have to figure out how itТs done. You havenТt been left with any choice now.Ф


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Chapter 25

As with a man who awakens from the terrors of a bad dream to find only the serenity of sunrise and the joys of birdsong, so the realization slowly dawned on the world that the nightmare was over. And from a world that could now breathe free emerged a new understanding.
Delegations of politicians, generals, and scientists from Peking, Vladivostok, Beirut, Cairo, and Cape Town came to Brunnermont to gaze in wonder at the embodiment of the final triumph of reason. U.S. Army BIAC operators demonstrated for them the truth of the prophesies that had been pronounced. Unerringly they could direct cataclysmic bolts of destruction upon any point they chose in the domain of the West or to guard its approaches; they proved it with a selection of prepared targets in the northern wastes of Arctic Canada, the deserts of Australia, and the offshore waters of Europe and the U.S.A. But when they attempted to extend the range of the weapon to reach certain locations in the Sahara, the Gobi, and the far north of Siberia that the East had agreed could be used for the tests, the computers refused to obey. That was as much proof as anybody was prepared to ask for; neither side seemed immediately disposed to embark on the billions of dollar expenditure that testing out the rest of the system would require. Some of the
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predictions, without any shadow of a doubt, would never be risked anyway. And besides that, as time went by, the need to find out if the system could be outwitted somehow subsided. It didnТt seem really important any more as the world began finding more pressing problems to turn its attention to.
Full details of the new physics that had made Brunnermont possible had, of course, been published throughout the world, and Clifford spent a busy period delivering a series of lectures on the subject to gatherings of scientists from all nations. In these he revealed a final piece of information about the Brunnermont watchdog, something he had neglected to mention previously.
The automatic surveillance system, programmed to fire immediately upon any strong source of hi-radiation that it detected in the nearby regions of space, would function only against targets located inside a distance of two hundred thousand miles. Beyond that radius k-technology could be developed and used safely.
He explained that it would not be feasible for a would-be aggressor to mount a I-bomb in a spacecraft with the intention of firing on or threatening terrestrial targets from outside BrunnermontТs effective range. The target-location system aboard such a craft would be capable of УseeingФ clearly from that distance only sources of intense hi-radiation, which in practice meant the solitary УbeaconФ of Brunnermont itself since no other source would be permitted to survive. But this beacon would be detected merely as a mathematical figment in the complexity of k-space, without yielding of itself the solutions of the equations that would be needed to mark its associated target coordinates in ordinary three-dimensional space. In other words, Brunnermont would not be vulnerable to destruction by these means. Before a J-bomb fire-

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