"Edward M. Lerner - Moonstruck" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lerner Edward M)

Britt nodded; it was all the encouragement Kyle needed. "For starters, our guests have a fusion reactor
aboard their landing craft. That technology alone would be invaluable."
"Is that so?" The response was nearly monotonic; Arledge seemed singularly unimpressed. "The F'thk
didn't mention that."
"Gotta be." Kyle warmed to his subject. The meter he'd taken to National hadn't differentiated between
types of radiation, but the gear he'd had stowed aboard the limos was far more sophisticated. The
drivers, following his instructions, had parked the cars in positions well spaced around the spaceship.
"There's definite neutron flux at the back of the ship and magnetic fringing like from a tokamak
quadrupole."
"Uh-huh."
"Magnetic-bottle technology to contain the plasma, and lots of shielding to protect the crew. Tons and
tons of shielding, Britt. You saw what their ship did to the runway."
"Okay."
"On our own, we may have practical fusion in fifty years." Thinking, suddenly, of the distant mother
ship, two-plus miles across, he nervously ran both hands through his hair. "Momma must have one big
fusion reactor aboard."
"Oh, I doubt it," said Britt, a cat-who-ate-the-canary grin lighting his tired face. "My friend H'ffl says it
uses matter-to-energy conversion. He wondered if we have antimatter."
Antimatter! No wonder Arledge was so unimpressed by his own news. "Fleetingly, for research, and
then only a few subatomic particles at a time. Nothing you could power a spaceship with." Or a
lightbulb, for that matter. A flurry of new Post-it notes suggestive of more progress distracted him.
"What was that?"
"I asked, is antimatter dangerous? H'ffl says it's standard practice to park antimatter-powered vessels in
the gravity well of an uninhabited moon when near an inhabited planet. Something about protecting
against the remote likelihood of a mishap. Does it make sense for them to keep the mother ship out by
the moon?"
"Yes, it's dangerous, and I don't know . . . Equal amounts of matter and antimatter do convert totally to
energy, at efficiencies far greater than fission or fusion. Orbit just a thousand miles above Earth, though,
and there's no atmosphere whatever. No friction. Even without engines, a ship would circle forever. If,
for some reason, it blew up, there'd be beaucoup radiation, but nothingтАФI should do some calculations
to confirm thisтАФnothing the atmosphere wouldn't effectively block.
"So, no, I don't see any reason to stay a quarter-million miles away. Then, what do I know? It's not like
Earth has technology remotely like theirs."
The chief of staff persisted. "Is the mother ship a danger where it is? What if it crashed on the moon?"
"A really big crater, as if one more would matter. The point is that won't happen. The moon has no
atmosphere. Any orbit higher than the tallest lunar mountain should last forever." Kyle had fudged a bit
for effect: given enough time, he suspected, gravitational perturbations from lunar mascons or other
planets, or tidal effects of the Earth, or solar wind would have disastrous effects on an orbit that low.
None of which applied, in less than geological time, to the altitude at which the F'thk ship actually


file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Bureaubla...r%20-%20Moonstruck%20(Baen)%20(v5)/0743498852___2.htm (3 of 6)28-12-2006 10:35:04
 - Chapter 2

orbited the moon. One glance through a telescope had convinced him that the mother ship wasn't ever
meant to land.
"The President will be relieved."
When had the Post-it notes stretched around to a second wall? "What else can I tell you?"
"Nothing, reallyтАФI was mostly making conversation. I actually came by to invite you to dinner." He
waved off Kyle's protest. "A state dinner, upstairs, tonight at eight. Perhaps Ambassador H'ffl or one of