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

UP does its interstellar-drive research, and where it produces and stores antimatter in hopes this
research will eventually bear fruit. The antimatter stockpile is vastly dangerous; its existence
supposedly a tightly held secret. Chung remains trusting.

There is subterfuge at hand, and it involves a third species. Twenty years earlier, the starship then
named Harmony was boarded and captured, its crew in suspended animation, on its final
approach to Barnard's Star. Harmony's rightful crew--a hypothetical human observer would see
arboreal octopi covered in green fur--remain shipboard prisoners of the K'vithians. The captives
are members of the Unity, the intelligent species of Alpha Centauri A, commonly referred to by
humans as the Centaurs. The K'vithians had sent a rigged lifeboat back toward Alpha Centauri.
The lifeboat radioed a contrived distress call and then self-destructed, to disguise the piracy and
make the Unity distrust their own technology.

K'choi Gwu , the ka (leader by consensus/captain) of the Unity prisoners sabotages the shipboard
environmental systems. Only a fresh supply of specialty home-world biochemicals can avert
eco-collapse. It is all a ruse to justify Gwu finally revealing the InterstellarNet credits hidden deep
within T'bck Ra , the long-suppressed shipboard AI. Gwu's captors reactivate the lobotomized AI
just long enough to retrieve the hidden financial codes--or so they believe. T'bck Ra has actually
hidden himself in computers distributed across the starship.

T'bck Fwa is the Unity's long-time trade agent to humanity. Unity authorities have ordered him to
search for human antimatter and interstellar-drive research. His diligent data mining long ago
revealed a clandestine human antimatter program on Himalia--and now a K'vithian starship has
made Jupiter its destination. Skeptical of news reports that an en route accident destroyed the
starship's antimatter refueling capability, he imagines a human/K'vithian conspiracy. His
suspicions grow when he learns Unity biochemicals are being synthesized on Earth for delivery to
the Jupiter system.

Firh Mashkith , Foremost of clan Arblen Ems and of the stolen starship he has renamed
Victorious, has more on his mind than the ailing ecosystem. Twenty years earlier when the starship
emerged from the outer darkness, no Hunter clan held the technology for antimatter or star
travel. As for Arblen Ems, they were out of favor among the clans, hiding on the fringes of their
solar system, and hunted to the brink of extinction. His boldness has changed all that.

The interstellar drive, however esoteric its theory, is easy to build. Mashkith's problem is fuel. The
starship never carried antimatter production equipment. Antimatter intended for its return to
Alpha Centauri A was used instead to reach Sol system. Mashkith hopes to trick the humans into
revealing how to produce and control antimatter on very large scales. If he succeeds, his
clan--alone--will have access to the stars. A carefully contrived demo with antimatter from
dwindling reserves convinces human skeptics that K'vith already has antimatter technology.
Mashkith's senior officers, Rashk Keffah and Rashk Lothwer , disparage human antimatter
technology. They "allow" human experts to convince them the UP's "primitive" antimatter
mechanisms can safely refuel Victorious. In the process, the K'vithians master antimatter
technology.

After a second contrived demo, this time of an interstellar-capable lifeboat left pre-positioned in
the Kuiper Belt, the UP agrees to trade a load of antimatter for the lifeboat. A triumphant
Mashkith gloats about human gullibility....
****
CHAPTER 24