"Edward M. Lerner - Part I of IV - A New Order of Things" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lerner Edward M)

The community center of Valhalla City had been commandeered by the newly assembled diplomatic
mission. For public consumption, the new arrivals were a United Planets environmental inspection
team--the starship's arrival, now only days away, remained a closely held secret. The meeting room's
dominant feature was a breathtaking display of nearby Jupiter. Alas, Art thought, it was a 3-V image he
could as well have enjoyed at home: Jupiter's massive magnetosphere trapped particles from the solar
wind, forming intense radiation belts that had driven this town, like most Jovian settlements, underground.

The head of mission, Ambassador Hong-yee Chung, stood at the entrance to the hall, dressed all in
undertaker black except for an orange accent sleeve, welcoming everyone. His shaved and waxed head
gleamed. Team members gathered around tables, mainly clustering by the ship on which they had
arrived--there had been little time to make new acquaintances. The diplomatic cadre, Chung's staff, sat
on the small platform at the front of the hall.

Art split his attention between the official goings-on and whispered consultations with his ship--and now
tablemates, Eva and Keizo. He did his best to ignore the holo ads that kept popping up on the side walls.

Chung was a UP career foreign service officer originally from Europa, the most populous world in the
multi-moon, multinational power bloc of Galileo. He was also, it turned out, a member of the Humanist
Movement. Humanists rejected neural interface technology as an impure blending of human and machine
natures. Chung was not evangelistic about those beliefs, but his lack of an implant turned the orientation
session into an old-fashioned lecture. Lectures: even Chung's networked aides orated their material, so
that their boss could listen. There was much to cover--events were coming to a climax.

The starship, whose initial progress and braking had been detectable only by triangulation of its
occasional radioed messages, was now close enough to track by radar. At about five billion kilometers,
the visitor became visible to optical telescopes pointed towards Barnard's Star. Spectroscopic analysis
made plain that the vessel had begun braking using fusion drives similar to human ships. ("What
mechanism had they been decelerating with?" whispered Eva. "Why did they switch?" No one in
whispering range had a guess.)

The Snakes, who weren't saying much, did offer that they were limiting communications to conserve
power. They volunteered nothing about the damage incurred in transit, nor what help they wanted. A
rendezvous had been set for five days hence, a half-million kilometers outside the orbit of Callisto, the
outermost of Jupiter's major moons.

"An observation." Art's chair scraped noisily as he stood. "This doesn't add up."

Chung squinted to read a name tag. "Why is that, Dr. Walsh?"

"Supposedly the Snakes have too little power to interact with us during this sensitive period. Instead of
Earth, they've headed for Jupiter, they say for fuel and supplies. Presumably they mean to scoop up
atmosphere and filter it for deuterium or tritium or helium-3. But they would have expended less energy
reaching Saturn, which has a similar atmosphere. As a bonus, Saturn's rings are full of water ice. Looking
ahead to post-repair, Saturn happens at the moment to be closer to Earth than is Jupiter. It also strikes
me that a meeting so far from major human settlements is inconsistent with repairing the damage they
claim to have had."

"Supposedly? They say? They claim to have had?" mimicked Chung. "What is your basis for such
skepticism?"