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

But Lynn RockrossтАФknown as тАЬLeeтАЭ to both friends and
rivalsтАФwasnтАЩt thinking about his work, although he was paying enough
attention to avoid making errors. He wasnтАЩt done with the artifact. He had
other ideas.

Lee was a shift leader on the RamblinтАЩ WreckтАЩs mining operation,
responsible for a crew of three. He was qualified on every piece of
equipment used in low-gravity and low-temperature extraterrestrial mining
operations. HeтАЩd been mining and prospecting ever since leaving his home
in the domed cities of Vesta, something he had done at fifteen, the age of
emancipation in the middle belt. HeтАЩd gone first to the ice moon Callisto,
and after a little time in a low-paying job on a melt line, had joined the crew
on a mining ship. In five years he had worked on four different mining and
prospecting ships, earning his union card, working his way up from unskilled
labor to shift leader. When he could, he liked to spend his time with wildcat
surveys, where he would be dropped off on a likely body with nothing but an
augmented suit, a laser drill, and a mass spectrometer. For weeks at a
time, heтАЩd be alone to characterize mineral composition in the hopes of a
finding a rare strike of usable material. Lee was perfectly comfortable alone
in a suit, out of contact with the rest of the universe.

Lee was smart enough in his own way, but he knew that shift leader
was as high as he could climb with only his self-education, learning about
whatever subject caught his attention. For the long voyage out to Sedna, he
had signed up to take university classes, the first step up toward supervisor
and eventually running his own ship. Now his personal databot had a load of
material for him to study in his spare time: literature, structural mechanics,
and physics, to start. Studying should have accounted for his off-shift
hoursтАФhe had a lot to catch up onтАФbut with the discovery of the strange
black circle on Sedna, he was thinking of changing his plans.
 The radioed instructions from back in-system, he knew, were more
properly a suggestion, not an order. The crew of RamblinтАЩ Wreck wasnтАЩt
subject to orders from scientific institutions a few billion kilometers away.

The union mandated that, even mining high-grade ammonia, they had
to be paid triple overtime at hazardous-duty rates for shifts longer than eight
hours, and the flint-eyed wretch Kellerman wasnтАЩt about to pay overtime.
Lee and his crew got sixteen hours off for every eight working, and the
union steward watched damn carefully to see that they werenтАЩt given
unofficial duties in their off time. So he had the time.

They finished their shift, bringing back the ice cores for the
cryomineralogy lab to analyze, and Dinky and Adrian headed off to unsuit
and hit the showers. Lee watched them head in, but didnтАЩt follow.

Lee figured he could skip one day of studying and bypass the
after-shift perpetual floating poker game. There was something interesting
out there, and he would be damned if he wasnтАЩt going to go take a look.
Although this was a mining operation, not prospecting, Lee was fully
certified for solo prospecting and didnтАЩt have to tell anybody what he did in