"Richard A." - читать интересную книгу автора (Lupoff Richard A)

"Mmh,"
he grunted. "So. Almost thirty significant satellites among them. Plus
the
trash. So." He nodded.
"And this new giant -- ?"
"Not new," Njord corrected. "It's been there all along, as long as any
of
the others. You know the old Laplace notion of elder planets and
younger
planets was abandoned about the same time as the solid atom and the
flat
Earth."
"Good work, Freyr," Shoten shot sarcastically.
"Well then?"
Sri Gomati said, "Clearly, Njord, Shoten meant newly discovered." She
paused for a fraction of a second. "And about to be newly visited."
Njord breathed a sigh of annoyance. "Well. And that old European,
what's-his-name, Galapagos saw the major moons of Jupiter seven hundred
years ago. All the others followed as soon as the optical telescope was
developed. They didn't even need radiation sensors, no less probes to
find
them. Seven hundred years."
"Seven hundred twenty-seven, Njord." Sri Gomati petted him gently on
his
genitals.
"You and your obsession with ancient history! I don't see how you
qualified for this mission, Gomati, always chasing after obscure
theorizers and writers!"
"It's hardly an obsession. Galileo was one of the key figures in the
history of science. And he found the four big Jovian moons in 1610.
It's
simple arithmetic to subtract that from 2337 and get seven-two-seven. I
didn't even have to call on a cyberbiot to compute that, Njord dear."
"Argh!" The flesh remnants in Njord's face grew hot.
Shoten Binayakya interrupted the argument. "There it comes into visual
range!" he exclaimed. "After these centuries, the perturbations of
Uranus
and Neptune solved at last. Planet X!"
Njord sneered. "You have a great predilection for the melodramatic,
Shoten! Planet X indeed!"
"Why," Shoten laughed, the sound fully synthesized, "it's a happy
coincidence, Njord dear. Lowell applied the term to his mystery planet,
meaning X the unknown. Until Tombaugh found it and named it Pluto. But
now
it is not only X the unknown but also X the tenth planet as well. Very
neat!"
Njord began a reply but paused as the distant planet became visible
through Khons's sensors. It was indeed a system like those of the inner
giant planets, and radar sensings pouring through Khons's external
devices, filtered and processed by cyberbiotic brains, overwhelmed his