"Will McCarthy - Bloom" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCarty Sarah)

down on the cars and trucks rolling along on their eggbeater wheels, at the fat-tired bicycles and
occasional pedestrians that hurried through the Ansharton streets. Looking up at the cavern roof, stony
but clotted densely with light sources that simulated, on this day, a diffuse sun shining through streaky
clouds, with hints of blue breaking through here and there. And the cranes and work gantries and laser
turrets poking down from this ersatz sky, completely ruining the effect. I sometimes wonder who we think
we're fooling.

At least there was wind, which I stood there and enjoyed for what seemed like a long time. Ten minutes?
Twenty? Longer than I usually have, to stand around doing nothing. Eventually, the sliding door opened
and closed, and Vaclav Lottick was there beside me, leaning on the railing, looking out on the cityscape
with me.

"I don't need the whole song and dance," I told him softly. "If it's easier, you can just give me the
highlights."

"It's easier," he agreed, then paused, taking breath a few times. He was calmer now than before. "And
I'm sorry for the delay. You know that mycora mutate quickly, right? Everyone knows that. A key
strength, a key factor. The whole Mycosystem probably depends on this, or it would have died out long
ago."

"So I've heard."

"Yes, well, what you probably haven't heard is that they're stealing data gene sequences from our own
phages. Nothing major, nothing all that important, but the mechanism and its potential limitations are not
known at this time."

"Stealing gene sequences?" I repeated stupidly. My skin had gone cold and crawly. Mycora were not
intelligent, not even alive, really. How could they steal?

"It's probably nothing," Lottick said. "Statistically, the chance that they'll steal something important and
actually be able to use it to their advantage is тАж Well, it's zero, basically. But we don't understand the
mechanism, and that has a lot of people upset, and bringing pressure to bear. What if the Mycosystem
gets hold of some of our environmental adaptations? What happens if they stumble on nuclear fission, or
cascade fusion, or God help us all, they manage to copy some of our ladderdown designs?"

"I don't know," I said, still cold. "What?"

He shrugged. "They eat the solar system, I guess. They eat the universe. It's not going to happen,
Strasheim, but that's the worst-case scenario we've got to dance around. Hence the mission."

"The starship?" I asked, puzzled but optimistic. Whatever the problem was, these people seemed to be
on top of it. Sort of.

"The starship, yeah, right." He chuckled, sounding tired. "We get it built, we fuel it up, we go on our
merry way, every single person that wants to. That's not going to happen either. I know it's the party line,
and maybe that's best for the time being, but the real goal of the program is to get our spores out to the
neighboring stars before the Mycosystem beats us to it. Immune system fully established, deny the
mycora a toehold even in the warm, bright spaces. But we've probably got a thousand years to worry
about it, and a lot to keep us busy until then."
"So what are we talking about?"