"Geoffrey A. Landis - Approaching Perimelasma" - читать интересную книгу автора (Landis Geoffrey A)

Wolf versus the black hole! The second technological trick I have in my duel against
the black hole is my body.
I am no longer a fragile, fluid-filled biological human. The tidal forces at the
horizon of a black hole would rip a true human apart in mere instants; the
ac-celerations required to hover would squash one into liquid. To make this journey,
I have downloaded your fragile biological mind into a body of more robust ma-terial.
As important as the strength of my new body is the fact that it is tiny. The force
produced by the curvature of gravity is proportional to the size of the object. My
new body, a millimeter tall, is millions of times more resistant to being stretched to
spaghetti.
The new body has another advantage as well. With my mind operating as
software on a computer the size of a pinpoint, my thinking and my reflexes are
thousands of times faster than biological. In fact, I have already chosen to slow my
thinking down, so that I can still interact with the biologicals. At full speed, my
microsecondreactions are lightning compared to the molasses of neuron speeds in
biolog-ical humans. I see far in the ultraviolet now, a necessary compensation for the
fact that my vision would consist of nothing but a blur if I tried to see by visible
light.
You could have made my body any shape, of course, a tiny cube or even a
featureless sphere. But you followed the dictates of social convention. A right human
should be recognizably a human, even if I am to be smaller than an ant, and so my
body mimics a human body, although no part of it is organic, and my brain faithfully
executes your own human brain software. From what I see and feel, externally and
internally, I am completely, perfectly human.
As is right and proper. What is the value of experience to a machine?
Later, after I returnтАФif I returnтАФI can upload back. I can become you.
But return is, as they say, still somewhat problematical.


You, my original, what do you feel? Why did I think I would do it? I imagine you
laughing hysterically about the trick youтАЩve played, sending me to drop into the
black hole while you sit back in perfect comfort, in no danger. Imagining your
laughter comforts me, for all that I know that it is false. IтАЩve been in the other place
before, and never laughed.
I remember the first time I fell into a star.


We were hotlinked together, that time, united in online-realtime, our separate brains
reacting as one brain. I remember what I thought, the incredible electric feel:
ohmigod, am I really going to do this? Is it too late to back out?
The idea had been nothing more than a whim, a crazy idea, at first. We had
been dropping probes into a star, Groombridge 1830B, studying the dynamics of a
flare star. We were done, just about, and the last-day-of-project party was just
getting in swing. We were all fuzzed with neurotransmitter randomizers, creativity
spinning wild and critical thinking nearly zeroed. Somebody, I think it was Jenna,
said, we could ride one down, you know. Wait for a flare, and then plunge through
the middle of it. Helluva ride!
Helluva splash at the end, too, somebody said, and laughed.