"James P. Hogan - Echoes of an Alien Sky" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

Cradle of Saturn
The Legend That Was Earth
Martian Knightlife
The Anguished Dawn
Kicking the Sacred Cow (nonfiction)
Mission to Minerva
The Two Moons
Echoes of an Alien Sky




CHAPTER ONE
The long-range supply ship Melther Jorg was named after a deceased Venusian statesman from the
island state of Korbisan, who had been a pioneer figure in marshaling political support for space
exploration. Twelve weeks after lifting out from orbit above Venus, it entered the terrestrial
magnetosphere at a distance of 90,000 miles from Earth, where the interplanetary plasma of charged
particles organizes itself spontaneously into the form of an enveloping sheath that isolates the charged
body of the Earth from its electrical environment. As the vessel shed the artificially sustained charge that
its engines had maintained to ride the electric field gradient extending from the Sun to the periphery of the
Solar System, magnetic decelerators braked it into a descent path that would bring it into a matching
orbit standing ten miles off from Earth Expedition Headquarters. The orbiting HQ was still referred to as
Explorer 6, although structural extensions and additions had greatly increased its size and altered its
appearance beyond recognition from the Scientific Operations Command ship that had been on station
for half a year now.
Half an Earth year, that is, Kyal Reen reminded himselfтАФan Earth year being equal to a little over
one and a half Venusian years. The local system of reckoning was used here. It was one of the things he
was going to have to get used to.
He sat with a mixed group of newcomers in the midships cabin on C-Deck, used by crew and
passengers as a general dayroom and mess hall, staring in fascination at the slowly enlarging view of Earth
being presented on the large screen dominating the end wall. The world of blue, broken by brown and
green coastlines showing through curdled whorls of white, with its fantastic geography and astounding
climates so different from the juddering lava plains and steaming swamps of Venus, was familiar to all of
them, of course. They had read the volumes of exploration reports, followed popular news features, and
seen pictures going all the way back to the views captured by the earliest unmanned probes. But the
image they were looking at now instilled awe in a way that was different from any previous experience.
Right now as they contemplated it, beyond the thin walls of the hull containing them and the bubble of air
that had carried them across millions of miles of space, the world that it represented was really out there.
Yorim Zeestran, Kyal's junior colleague from the International Academy of Space Sciences, took in
the view, sprawled untidily in an easy chair next to him. He had a lean but broad-shouldered,
loose-limbed frame, and his chin had sprouted a fringe of yellow growth in the latter part of the voyage.
"Imagine, a planet five-sixths water," he murmured. "Who'd ever have believed so much water? It amazes
me that the Terrans weren't fish."
Yorim had a casual attitude toward protocol and custom that sometimes raised eyebrows with
strangers, but he and Kyal had worked together long enough for informality to be natural between them.
For all of those present except Kyal, this was their first time off-planet apart from the short training flights
that had formed part of the mission preparation program. Kyal's work in electrical space propulsion
research had sometimes involved him in protracted space trips, but never before over interplanetary
distances. Hence, all of them were first-timers to Earth.
"Look, over to the left," Emur Frazin said, gesturing. "That thin, curving shape showing through. I