"James P. Hogan - Giants 1 - Inherit The Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

respect for Francis, to pull a stunt like that. He knows Francis can handle it
okay. Besides, that's not his way of doing things -- too underhanded." Hunt
paused to exhale a cloud of smoke. "Anyhow, I think there's a lot more to it
than meets the eye. From what I saw, even Felix didn't seem too sure what it's
all about."
"Mmmm..." Gray thought for a while longer before abandoning further
excursions into the realms of deductive logic. He contemplated the growing
tide of humanity flowing in the general direction of C-deck bar. "My guts are
a bit churned up, too," he confessed. "Feels like a crate of Guinness on top
of a vindaloo curry. Come on -- let's go get a coffee."

In the star-strewn black velvet one thousand miles farther up, the
Sirius Fourteen communications-link satellite followed, with cold and
omniscient electronic eyes, the progress of the skyliner streaking across the
mottled sphere below. Among the ceaseless stream of binary data that flowed
through its antennae, it identified a call from the Boeing's Gamma Nine master
computer, requesting details of the latest weather forecast for northern
California. Sirius Fourteen flashed the message to Sirius Twelve, hanging high
over the Canadian Rockies, and Twelve in turn beamed it down to the tracking
station at Edmonton. From here the message was relayed by optical cable to
Vancouver Control and from there by microwave repeaters to the Weather Bureau
station at Seattle. A few thousandths of a second later, the answers poured
back up the chain in the opposite direction. Gamma Nine digested the
information, made one or two minor alterations to its course and flight plan,
and sent a record of the dialogue down to Ground Control, Prestwick.


Chapter Two

It had rained for over two days.
The Engineering Materials Research Department of the Ministry of Space
Sciences huddled wetly in a fold of the Ural Mountains, an occasional ray of
sunlight glinting from a laboratory window or from one of the aluminum domes
of the reactor building. Seated in her office in the analysis section,
Valereya Petrokhov turned to the pile of reports left on her desk for routine
approval. The first two dealt with run-of-the-mill high-temperature corrosion
tests. She flicked casually through the pages, glanced at the appended graphs
and tables, scrawled her initials on the line provided, and tossed them across
into the tray marked "Out." Automatically she began scanning down the first
page of number three. Suddenly she stopped, a puzzled frown forming on her
face. Leaning forward in her chair, she began again, this time reading
carefully and studying every sentence. She finally went back to the beginning
once more and worked methodically through the whole document, stopping in
places to verify the calculations by means of the keyboard display standing on
one side of the desk.
"This is unheard of!" she exclaimed.
For a long time she remained motionless, her eyes absorbed by the
raindrops slipping down the window but her mind so focused elsewhere that the
sight failed to register. At last she shook herself into movement and, turning
again to the keyboard, rapidly tapped in a code. The strings of tensor