"James P. Hogan - Giants 2 - The Gentle Giants of Ganymede" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

the lenses with his handkerchief.
"Very well," he said. "Let us pursue the assumption and conclude that by
the time the Ganymeans had evolved -- twenty-five million years ago -- the
land surface of Minerva was populated by a multitude of its own native life
forms, each of which possessed a low tolerance to carbon dioxide, among other
things. What other clues do we have available to us that might help determine
what was happening on Minerva at that time?"
"We know that the Ganymeans were quitting the planet and trying to
migrate someplace else," Sandy Holmes threw in. "Probably to some other star
system."
"Oh, really?" Danchekker smiled, showing his teeth briefly before
breathing on his spectacle lenses once more. "How do we know that?"
"Well, there's the ship down under the ice here for a start," she
replied. "The kind of freight it was carrying and the amount of it sure
suggested a colony ship intending a one-way trip. And then, why should it show
up on Ganymede of all places? It couldn't have been traveling between any of
the inner planets, could it?"
"But there's nothing outside Minerva's orbit to colonize," Carpenter
chipped in. "Not until you get to the stars, that is."
"Exactly so," Danchekker said soberly, directing his words at the woman.
"You said 'suggested a colony ship.' Don't forget that that is precisely what
the evidence we have at present amounts to -- a suggestion and nothing more.
It doesn't prove anything. Lots of people around the base are saying we now
know that the Ganymeans abandoned the Solar System to find a new home
elsewhere because the carbon-dioxide concentration in the Minervan atmosphere
was increasing for some reason which we have yet to determine. It is true that
if what we have just said was fact, then the Ganymeans would have shared the
low tolerance possessed by all land dwellers there, and any increase in the
atmospheric concentration could have caused them serious problems. But as we
have just seen, we know nothing of the kind; we merely observe one or two
suggestions that might add up to such an explanation." The professor paused,
seeing that Carpenter was about to say something.
"There was more to it than that though, wasn't there?" Carpenter
queried. "We're pretty certain that all species of Minervan land dwellers died
out pretty rapidly somewhere around twenty-five million years ago...all except
the Ganymeans themselves maybe. That sounds like just the effect you'd expect
if the concentration did rise and all the species there couldn't handle it. It
seems to support the hypothesis pretty well."
"I think Paul's got a point," Sandy Holmes chimed in. "Everything adds
up. Also, it fits in with the ideas we've been having about why the Ganymeans
were shipping all the animals into Minerva." She turned toward Carpenter, as
if inviting him to complete the story from there.
As usual, Carpenter didn't need much encouragement. "What the Ganymeans
were really trying to do was redress the CO2 imbalance by covering the planet
with carbon-dioxide-absorbing, oxygen-producing terrestrial green plants. The
animals were brought along to provide a balanced ecology that the plants could
survive in. Like Sandy says, it all fits."
"You're trying to fit the evidence to suit the answers that you already
want to prove," Danchekker cautioned. "Let's separate once more the evidence
that is fact from the evidence which is supposition or mere suggestion." The