"C. Sanford Lowe & G. David Nordley - Loki's Realm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lowe C Sanford)

Wen, showed up at Broadford to interview me. We hit it off well, and over a glass of
fourteen-year-old Talisker, my proposal was accepted. So, with a little more fuss
than I need relate here, I made my goodbyes to my older brother, to Macready
Manor, to Broadford College, and to my past life.
I sent a few personal things ahead and began this journey of some thirteen
light-years on foot, hiking the ten kilometers to Kyle of Lochalsh. One travels light
among the stars, and I wanted to savor what little time I had left on Skye. It was
OctoberтАФclear, bright, and nippyтАФand the view of Skye from the height of the
bridge almost made me turn in my tracks and head back.
But no, I have an inertia in me that is legendary, and my path IтАЩd chosen. I
sighed and marched down the mainland side of the span and into the transit station.
There I caught a fan bus to Glasgow and took an orbital shuttle four hundred
kilometers up to Sheffield Spaceport, the rotating toroidal space station near which
the starship Admiral Byrd was then keeping station.
As I left the shuttle, a smiling attendant met me. тАЬDr. Macready?тАЭ he said.
тАЬYouтАЩre wanted on the starship.тАЭ
I was surprised; the Admiral Byrd wasnтАЩt due out for two more days, and IтАЩd
anticipated some time to explore Sheffield Spaceport.
The attendant handed me a pair of somewhat old-fashioned looking
spectacles. Smart glasses, I realized. TheyтАЩd been around for a couple of centuries,
but with an old-fashioned wrist comp for all my needs, IтАЩd never used them before.
тАЬTheyтАЩre for those who havenтАЩt had bioradios installed,тАЭ he said.
Of course. IтАЩd been born a wee bit early to have the genetic modification that
allows peopleтАЩs brains to send and receive radio waves. The spectacles were a
prosthesis for those of us so handicapped, and theyтАЩd known I was coming. I put
them on with a frown. Nothing appeared.
тАЬSpeak the name of what you want to know as quietly as you like, or stare at
something for more than a second, down the hall to the shuttle dock, for instance.тАЭ
I looked at the attendant. The glasses identified him as тАЬLane Woo, flight
attendant, Cislunar Transportation Service.тАЭ
тАЬThank you, Mr. Woo. This will take some getting used to.тАЭ
He nodded with a smile and went about his business as I went about mine.
The glasses led me to an elevator down to the 0.1 gee level, through a long park-like
transit lounge to the shuttle gate. In a few minutes, a runabout whisked me off to the
starship.
Up close, the Admiral Byrd was impressively weird. It had a
hundred-meter-wide crown of six 120-meter-long icicles that were evenly spaced. At
the wide end of each icicle was a ten-meter-radius sphere, which housed the
habitable parts of the starship. This entire arrangement rotated majestically. From my
point of view, the icicles occasionally eclipsed each other, separated, and eclipsed
each other again, making me think of the blades on wool shears.
As I got closer, I could see that the band of the crown that joined them all was
thick enough for people to pass through. Closer still, I saw the forward ring sitting
about a quarter of the way between the bases and the tips of the icicles. Thin тАЬlegsтАЭ
slanted in and forward to attach this smaller ring to the rest of the ship. That forward
ring was a magnetic choke that would increase the shipтАЩs ability to reflect the ions
that would push it alongтАФthe design actually dated back to the twentieth century,
though not realized until the twenty-second. It also helped deflect charged debris in
front of the ship. It is one thing to study the history of such things, or see them on
some video display, and entirely a different thing to see them with oneтАЩs own eyes. I