"Evan Innes - America 2040 02 - Golden World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Innes Evan)

Sol is from Earth, but sheтАЩs larger and appears as a swollen, bloated, orange-flaring disc of unusual
beauty.

To say that we face an uncertain future would be nothing new. But when I think about what was facing
the billions on Earth when our ship rocketed away, I count my lucky starsтАФand there are plenty of them
to count from space. I must soon begin to record and preserve the shocking facts given to me by Captain
Rodrick as to the reasons behind President Dexter HamiltonтАЩs decision to use the dwindling resources of
the United States to build this great starship: Soviet Premier Yuri Kolchak suffered from a rare terminal
disease and was determined to see a Red world or a dead world before his own death. HamiltonтАЩs
choice was a grim one. He had either to stand aside and let the communist forces occupy all the world
except the United States or contest the communists. Kolchak had promised him that the end result of
American resistance would be nuclear war.

So, more than anything else, theSpirit of America is Dexter HamiltonтАЩs creation. He had it built to keep
the spirit of freedom alive in the face of a threat of nuclear war. We colonists are charged with keeping
the American way of life alive in space, no matter what happened on Earth after our takeoff.

When we left Earth, two other starships, the Rus-siansтАЩKarl Marx and the BraziliansтАЩEstr├кla do Brasil ,
were making preparations for takeoff. With our communications out, we donтАЩt know the whereabouts of
those ships or their intentions. There are billions of stars in our galaxy, and in theory, many of them will
have habitable planets. Perhaps the Russians and the Brazilians will find their own planets, but I have
heard many people, including some of our officers, speculate that the Russians might want to carry the
old Earth war into space. Should they follow us here to the Cygni system, I know we will be ready.

I also feel confident that our huge new planet is going to be friendly to us. Today, eleven light years from
Earth, over a thousand passengers who represent all civilized skills and all scientific knowledge are busy
preparing to join our scouts and scientists, who have already proven that our new planet is quite friendly
to human habitation. We are all eager to begin. We have the tools, the knowledge, and the expertise to
build a technology and do whatever it takes for Captain Rodrick to return this vast starship to Earth with
her raw materials, food, and most important, a message of hope.



I

OMEGA



ONE



TheSpirit of America was big. She was the largest object ever to be lifted from a planetary surface by
rocket power, or any other power, unless one believed the theory that Venus had been flung out of the
planet Jupiter or that EarthтАЩs moon had been spun off from EarthтАЩs mass during planet formation aeons
past. She was a complicated collection of millions of parts, mechanical and electronic, and Captain
Duncan Rodrick knew that in any mechanical or electrical system lay the foundation of MurphyтАЩs Law: If
something can go wrong, it will.