"Zach Hughes - Closed System" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Zach)

CLOSEDSYSTEM

by Zach Hughes

A SIGNET BOOK

NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY

Copyright ┬й 1986 by Hugh ZacharyAll rights reserved



ONE




The computer was being cranky again. The oldermodels of the Century Series were subject to
ion-izationof the Verboldt Cloud memory chambers, and decontamination of the chambers in a
well-equipped shop on a civilized planet was the onlycure. In the Ophiuchus sector planets were few,
even if one counted Van Biesbroeck's brown dwarf,a gas giant circling VB-8, twenty-one light-yearsout
from Old Earth and almost thirteen light-yearsbehind. As for the degree of civilization in Ophiu-chus, that
remained to be seen.

Pat Howe had the ship's optics on scan. He wassure that he recognized the obverse patterns ofstars in
both Scorpius and Sagittarius, but whendealing with distances measured in parsecs on the far end of a
little-used blink route, one did not relyon optical readings as interpreted by the always fallible human
mind.

The computer had begun to develop a crustypersonality after theSkimmer's last overhaul. Itreminded
Pat of a creaking, proud, overly meticu-lous old man more intent on thoroughness thanefficiency. The
computer had gone to H-alpha lightand was laboriously building a composite 360-degree photo map,
following a procedure designed for use in the event a ship became hopelessly lost, with not one known
point recognizable. However,sooner or later the computer would accomplishthe purpose of checking the
ship's position. To haltthe process would have required giving the com-puter detailed instructions, and
that would haveinterrupted Pat's dinner.

The nutrition servos were working well, as were,indeed, all of the ship's systems except the com-puter.
Skimmer was a smoothly functioning com-plex of hardware, electronics, and subatomic tech-nology that
muttered, purred, clicked around Patwith familiar, reassuring sounds. She was in excel-lent condition for
her age, squat and squarish,solidly built. She was moderately luxurious insideand all space dog outside, a
refitted deep-spacetug, Mule Class. She had become surplus, and thus affordable, when the deep-space
tug companies be-gan racing each other to replace the dependableold Mules with the sleek,
ultrapowerful Greyhounds.

For five decades, the Mules had been the most reliable ships in space.Skimmer had power to sparein
her drive system, because she'd been built to be able to haul in the largest liner, and to be able tomake
multiple blinks without recharging the over-sized blink generator which, with the chambers ofthe flux
atmospace drive, occupied a large portionof her interior space.