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

Brasil.

The religion of the day, as appropriate to the climate of political
realities, was a mutated form of the ancient Ishtar cult, with local
variations as Ashtoroth, Astarte, and Aphrodite. There was even a sort of
universal Mamacy, with its seat in ancient but restored Babylon.

MARCH 15, 2337
"I don't see why it's taken so long to get here, anyway," Njord Freyr
snapped.
"You mean from Pluto?" Shoten responded. "But we are on course. We are in
free fall. Look." The cyberbiots superimposed a small box of course data
beside the whirling diagram of the Yuggoth system.
"Not from Pluto!" Njord spat. "From Earth! Why has it taken until 2337 to
reach -- Yuggoth? When space flight began almost as long ago as the era
Sri Gomati babbles about. The first extraterrestrial landings took place
in 1969. Mars thirty years later. Remember the stirring political slogan
that we all learned as children, as children studying the history of our
era? Persons will set foot on another planet before the century ends! That
was the twentieth century, remember?"
"Every schoolchild knows," Shoten affirmed wearily.
Gomati, recovered from the shock of Njord's blow, spoke; "We could have
been here two hundred years ago, Njord Freyr. But fools on Earth lost
heart. They began, and lost heart. They began again -- and lost heart
again. And again. Four times they set out, exploring the planets. Each
time they lost heart, lost courage, lost interest. Were distracted by
wars. Turned resources to nobler purposes.
"Humankind reached Mars as promised. And lost heart. Started once more
under Shahar Shalim of the old New Maghreb. Reached Venus and Mercury. And
lost heart. Reached the asteroid belt and the gas giants under Tanit
Shadrapha of Ugarit. And lost heart.
"And now. At last. We are here." She gestured with her flowing, waving
tentacles toward the diagram that glowed against the ship's dull fittings.
"What course, Shoten Binayakya?' she asked brusquely.
The whirling bodies on the screen were marked in red, the pulsing red of
Yuggoth's inner flames, the beating, reflected red of the madly dashing
moons. A contrasting object appeared on the screen, the flattened
cone-shape of the ship Khons, trailing in its wake as it wove among the
bodies a line to show the course of its passage. Shortly the line had
woven past, circled about, curved beyond each body in the diagram, leaving
the stylized representation of Khons in perturbated circular orbit about
the entire system.
"So," purred Shoten Binayakya. And Sri Gomati and Njord Freyr in turn.
"So." "So."
Shoten Binayakya flicked a pressure plate with some limb, some tool. Khons
bucked, slithered through a complex course correction. Shoten slapped
another plate and the full exterior optics of Khons were activated; to the
three members of the crew, hooked into the cyberbiotic system of the ship,
it was as if they fell freely through the distantly star-sprayed night.
Fell, fell toward red, glowing, pulsating Yuggoth and its family of gray