"Who's Afraid Of Wolf 359" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacLeod Ken)

An Astronomical Unit is one of those measurements that should be obsolete, but isnТt. ItТs no moreЧor lessЧarbitrary than the light-year. All our units have origins that no longer mean anything to usЧwe measure time by what was originally a fraction of one axial rotation, and space by a fracнtion of the circumference, of the MoonТs primary. An AU was originally the distance between the MoonТs primary and its primary, the Sun. These days, itТs usually thought of as the approximate distance from a G-type star to the middle of the habitable zone. About a hundred and fifty million kiнlometers.

The Long Tube, which the Long Station existed to shuttle people to and from and generally to maintain, was one hundred and eighty astronomical units long. Twenty-seven thousand million kilometers, or, to put it in perнspective, one light-day. From the shuttle, it looked like a hairline crack in infinity, but it didnТt add up to a mouseТs whisker in the Oort. It was aimed straight at Sirius, which I could see as a bright star with a fuzzy green haze of habitats. I shivered. I was about to be frozen, placed with the rest of the passengers on the next needle ship out, electromagnetically accelerated for months at 30 g to relativistic velocities in the Long Tube, hurtled across 6.4 light-years, decelerated in SiriusТs matching tube, accelerated again to Procyon, then to Talande 21185, and finally sent on a fast clipper to LalandeТs next-door neighbor and fellow red dwarf, Wolf 359. It had to be a fast clipнper because Wolf 359Тs Long Tubes were no longer being calibratedЧand when youТre aiming one Long Tube across light-years at the mouth of anнother, calibration matters.

A fast clipperЧin fact, painfully slow, the name a legacy of pre-Tube times, when 0.1c was a fast clipЧalso has calibration issues. Pushed by laser, decelerated by laser reflection from a mirror shell deployed on nearing the target system, it was usually only used for seedships. This clipper was an adapted seedship, but I was going in bulk because it was actually cheaper to thaw me out on arrival than to grow me from a bean. If the calibration wasnТt quite right, IТd never know.

The shuttle made minor course corrections to dock at the Long Tube.

УPlease pass promptly to the cryogenic area,Ф it told us.

I shivered again.

* * * *

Cryogenic travel has improved since then: subjectively, itТs pretty much inнstantaneous. In those days, it was called cold sleep, and thatТs exactly what it felt like: being very cold and having slow, bad dreams. Even with relativistic time dilation and a glacial metabolism, it lasted for months.

I woke screaming in a translucent box.

УThere, there,Ф said the box. УEverything will be all right. Have some coffee.Ф

The lid of the box extruded a nipple toward my mouth. I screamed again.

УWell, if youТre going to be like that...Ф said the box.

УIt reminded me of a nightmare,Ф I said. My mouth was parched. УPlease.Ф

УOh, all right.Ф

I sucked on the coffee and felt warmth spread from my belly.

УUpdate me,Ф I said, around the nipple.

My translucent surroundings became transparent, with explanatory text and diagrams floating like afterimages. A view, with footnotes. This helped, but not enough. An enormous blue and white sphere loomed right in front of me. I recoiled so hard that I hurt my head on the back of the box.

УWhat the fuck is that?Ф

УA terraformed terrestrial,Ф said the box. УPlease do try to read before reacting.Ф

УSorry,Ф I said. УI thought we were falling toward it.Ф

УWe are,Ф said the box.

I must have yelled again.

УRead before reacting,Ф said the box. УPlease.Ф

I turned my head as if to look over my shoulder. I couldnТt actually turn it that far, but the box obligingly swiveled the view. The red dwarf lurked at my back, apparently closer than the blue planet. I felt almost relieved. At least Wolf 359 was where I expected it. According to the viewТs footnotes, nothing else was, except the inactive Long Tubes in the wispy remnant of the cometary cloud, twelve light-hours out. No solar-orbit microwave stations. Not even the hulks of habitats. No asteroids. No large cometary masses. And a planet, something that shouldnТt have been there, was. I didnТt need the explanatory text to make the connection. Every scrap of accessible mass in the system had been thrown into this gaudy reconstruction. The planet reminded me of pictures IТd seen of the MoonТs primary, back when it had liquid water.

The most recent information, inevitably a decade or so out of date, came from Lalande 21185. Watching what was going on around Wolf 359 was a tiny minority interest, but in a population of a hundred billion, that can add up to a lot. Likewise, the diameter of Lalande s habitat cloud was a good deal smaller than an Astronomical Unit, but that still adds up to a very large virtual telescope. Large enough to resolve the weather patterns on the planet below me, never mind the continents. The planetТs accretion had begun before I set off, apparently under deliberate control, and the terra-forming had been completed about fifty years earlier, while I was en route. It remained rawЧlots of volcanoes and earthquakesЧbut habitable. There was life, obviously, but no one knew what kind. No radio signals had been detected, nor any evidence of intelligence, beyond some disputably artificial clusters of lights on the night side.