"Laurence Manning - The Living Galaxy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Manning Laurence)

He gathered together a dozen scientistsтАФtwelve men and women whose names are now unknown.
They settled upon an uninhabited planetoid circling a small sunтАФa tiny planet not quite one hundred miles
in diameterтАФand busied themselves in secret preparations. Atomic motors of huge size were constructed
and the entire core of the planet scooped out and its stone transformed into metal. From the center, great
rocket tubes flared out to the surfaceтАФfifty miles awayтАФand the entire planet was in a few centuries
made into a rocket ship. A mile below the surface they made themselves living quarters and were ready
to start. The voyage they planned was, in those days, incredible. So much fuel would be needed that only
a ship of planetary dimensions could have contained it and it would have been absurd to construct such a
vehicle. The whole planet was set under motion by earth-shaking blasts from the great rocket chamber
and the voyage commenced. Its purpose was no less than to explore the edge of space and investigate
the force that was driving the stars apart. Consider this at a time when the longest flight had been less
than a thousand years! After the fashion of those days of naming everything, the planet-ship was named
the Humanity.
These twelve immortals and their leader, Bzonn, had wasted no time upon preparations. As soon as
the blast chambers had been excavated by atomic motors in the core of the Humanity, they set off. For
what remained to be done there would be ample time during the voyage. After continuous firing for thirty
hours, they were traveling at the speed of 100,000 miles a second. The bulk of their ship had been
reduced by one quarter, in spite of the well-known efficiency of atomic power. For two hundred years
they tore through the First Universe at this speed, often averting collisions by furious application of rocket
power at the last second. During this time, the tiny planet-ship had been converted into the most
enormous power-plant known to mankind. Its surface was gleaming with a silver tracery of beams and
girders housing every known appliance for the use of power in attack and defence. It is said that a tenth
of the weight of the Humanity could be converted into energy in one secondтАФa greater outpouring of
force than possessed by many of our stars.
When the grey stretches of inter-galactic space were reached, a course was set to avoid all stars and
the pace was speeded up to 150,000 miles a second, relative to its starting speed, in its orbit which was,
of course, unknown in the absolute. Four million years were to elapse in this monotonous journey and,
there being four females among the dozen scientists, a few hundred new humans were bred and educated
during the first two or three centuries and the Humanity turned into a research laboratory in physics and
related subjects. Several important inventions were given to the human race as a result, which you will
learn about later in more technical courses. The only one I shall mention is the theory of gravitation
diseasesтАФthat inexplicable effect upon stars and planets of Bzonn's "delayed" or static vortex. We now
know that this effect on a minute scale is responsible for our atomic power. When applied to a sun, the
result, after a delay of a century or two, is sudden expansion and deterioration until nothing remains but a
vast cloud of bright gas. Since suns are rarely found outside of thickly starred systems, the net result is
that several dozen suns are destroyed before the reaction is complete. The sending apparatus is
extremely complicated and the power required to set up such a vortex is enormous.
It must not be thought that the opportunity for charting the galaxies was neglected. A small mountain
of photographs was prepared during the four million years. Progress was made in every phase of art and
science. It is regrettable that the colonization idea was not thought of until a million years had elapsed.
This consisted of breeding a hundred humans and thoroughly educating them, stopping the Humanity in
her course, entering a galaxy and finding a planet, and then leaving the hundred colonists on it to multiply
and explore their new universe. This was done, Bzonn reports, more than one hundred and seventy times
in the last three million years of the voyage. Twice during this period, the Humanity was deserted for a
new planet and fresh and improved machines and equipment were set up, the name and purpose in each
case being transferred to the new planet-ship, and the old one left with the current quota of colonists in
the quickly deserted universe that then held them.
All dimensions, no matter how gigantic, have a definite end and the time came at last when, search as
they might, no light of any sort could be seen beyond the edges of the last universe they had visited.
Always before, though it might be a million years to the next star, the sky had shown dusty gray with