"Geoffrey A. Landis - The Man in the Mirror" - читать интересную книгу автора (Landis Geoffrey A)

Braking into elliptical orbit around Sedna, they photographed the
strange circular anomaly as they scouted for resources, and they sent back
to the inner system all the data they happened to gather on its location and
approximate size. In return, they were ordered to stay away from it. It was
not a natural artifact, they were told, and it most certainly wasnтАЩt something
humans had built, since they were the first people ever to reach Sedna. It
was alien. They werenтАЩt qualified to investigate. Back in the inner system
somebody worried that a bunch of union-slacker rock jockeys scratching
around an artifact of incalculable value would be far more likely to destroy
something than they would be to find something valuable.

From their orbital reconnaissance, they had mapped a rich ammonia
deposit, a frozen lake of ammonia larger than most asteroids. That, along
with the organic tholins frozen into the ice, looked like a good place to start
operations.

The mining ship landed on Sedna more than five hundred kilometers
around the planet from the artifact, at the ammonia site. Somebody else
would be out to investigate the artifact, some slow and careful scientific
team, with all the tools and backup from Earth needed. Ramblin Wreck was
there to mine.

тАЬThatтАЩs crazy,тАЭ said Rockross. тАЬAll this way, and we stop a lousy five
hundred kilometers from the one tourist attraction on the planet?тАЭ

His buddy, Dinky Zimmer, gave him a quizzical look. тАЬWeтАЩre here to
do some mining,тАЭ he said. тАЬWho cares about a black circle if it doesnтАЩt have
ammonia?тАЭ

Adrian Penn, the third on his three-man crew, said, тАЬIf we hit pay ice,
with the bonus weтАЩre due, we can see all the tourist attractions we want. You
want to check my seals?тАЭ

Rockross checked DinkyтАЩs suit seals, and then AdrianтАЩs, and gave
them both a thumbs-up; and then Dinky checked his. The suits were the
close-fitting style that the crew called nudie-suits; everybody checked their
own seals, of course, but then for safety they each checked each other as
well. The checklist required that every step be verified with a buddy. After
seal checks, he verified his suit battery charge, and then checked Dinky
and AdrianтАЩs charges while they verified his charge. They were suiting up
for their first eight-hour shift, taking ice cores and setting up the thermal
radiators that would be needed for mining. SomedayтАФif the nitrogen strike
was good enoughтАФthe equipment they were setting up would be the head
of an interplanetary pipeline, where induction motors would toss two-tonne
bricks of frozen ices into trajectories that would, over the course of years,
coast downhill to markets in the inner solar system. That would be all
automated, of course. But for now, humans were needed to scout and set
up equipment.