"James P. Hogan - Martian Knightlife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

thoughts as they formed in his mind. At the same time, whatever went on in her own remained
impenetrable unless she chose otherwise. The dark blue, sleeveless dress she was wearing, along with
her black hair, accentuated the paler hue of her face and arms in the subdued lighting above the booth
they had found.
She and Kieran were kindred free spirits thriving in the environment of diversity and opportunity
being created in the expansion outward from Earth, following orbits that recrossed periodically like
those of other errant and adventurous bodies inhabiting the Solar System. June worked for herself as a
scientific news explorer and information broker, which she sometimes combined with special
commissions as a publicist.
After they had devoted aperitifs and the appetizer course to the required preliminaries of updating
each other on old friends and reliving choice snippets of past adventures, Kieran finally came around
to the point. тАЬSo everything went okay yesterday at Quantonix?тАЭ June had said as much over the
phone earlier, but it broached the subject.
тАЬPerfectly,тАЭ she replied.
Kieran looked at her expectantly, but she tantalized him by taking more from her plate and
glancing at him challengingly every few seconds while she carried on chewing. тАЬIs it what I think it
is?тАЭ Kieran asked finally.
June stopped playing with him and nodded. тАЬThey did it with a human: Sarda himselfтАФfrom a lab
in the basement to another upstairs. It was practically his technology. He wouldnтАЩt let the first subject
be anyone else.тАЭ
тАЬAnd everything went okay? HeтАЩs walking around and talking normally? Knows everything that
the original did?тАЭ
тАЬAbsolutely, so far,тАЭ June said. тАЬAnd if there were anything amiss, I think it would have shown by
now. TheyтАЩve been running him through every kind of test imaginable all day. He registers the same
scores on everything: physical, mental, motor; language, numeric, spatial; long-term memory, short-
term memory. . . .тАЭ She shook her head. тАЬIt was astounding. I had trouble believing what I was
seeing.тАЭ
тАЬSo how does he feel about it? Did you get a chance to talk to him?тАЭ
June nodded. тАЬPretty ecstatic. тАШRelief,тАЩ I guess, would be the main impression that came through.
But thatтАЩs hardly surprising. How would you feel?тАЭ
Kieran nodded. тАЬPretty relieved, IтАЩd say,тАЭ he agreed.
EarthтАЩs scientific establishment had largely rigidified into associations of priesthoods preserving
their dead religions. Most original thinking and innovation these days happened in environments like
Mars, the Belt habitations, and various surface and orbiting constructions on and around the moons of
the gas giants, as well as other places in between. Among the various forms of entrepreneurial
ventures to turn new knowledge into wealth that had come into existence beyond EarthтАЩs effective
regulatory reach, Quantonix was of the kind known as тАЬsunsidersтАЭтАФan allusion to the limited time
available to get anything useful done on the daylight hemispheres of rotating bodies. Essentially,
sunsiders were small, high-pressure research organizations delving into fringe areas of science that
had been laughed off or were deemed to be of no practicable value by institutionalized academiaтАФ
which meant little chance of finding support from conservative Terran investors. Funding therefore
came mainly from more nervy, higher-risk, higher-gain sources found in niches through the off-Earth
economy, and the hope was to make some significant breakthrough that could be sold to one of the
major interplanetary commercial concerns before it ran out. The failure rate of sunsider companies
was appalling, but the return for those that succeeded could be fabulous. Life in them was invariably
frantic, often acrimonious, but never dull.
With humanityтАЩs numbers climbing rapidly through the high tens of billions and its radius of
activity reaching to the outer planets, transporting them and their property around was among the
fastest growing and most remunerative industries. But immense though the demand and the future potential
were, the means for accomplishing it still took the form of people in cans of some kind being fired off