"Michael McCollum - Maker 1 - Lifeprobe" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCollum Michael)

PROBE had remained in communication with the Makers for nearly a full year following launch, but the
contact had consisted solely of exchanges of engineering data with the ground computers. Never again
had JurulтАЩs voice -- or that of any other Maker -- ridden the laser beam. Shortly after PROBE reached
cruising velocity, even that tenuous link with home was broken, and with it, all hope of ever speaking to
Jurul again.

For when PROBE returned to point of launch (if it returned), Jurul would be ancient dust and it would fall
to one of his descendants to take the report.

However, to report, PROBE must first return home. That was proving no easy task. It had accepted the
same gamble every life probe took when it boosted into the unknown, a bet five of six eventually lost. It
was beginning to look as though PROBE might become another grim statistic.

Life probes, the direct descendants of the ancient slowboats, were the ultimate of the MakersтАЩ many
creations. Powered by gravitational singularities, they climbed to nearly one-tenth the speed of light
before shutting down their boosters. Thus, PROBE was destined to spend most of its life in transit,
plodding slowly outbound toward the galactic rim, with the eternity between stars its greatest danger. No
intelligent construct, whether organic or machine, could maintain its sanity on such a journey. Its memory
banks would overflow with data long before the first waypoint sun if nothing were done to protect them.

It was for this reason that the Makers had created CARETAKER and the long sleep.

CARETAKER was PROBEтАЩs alter ego. Its brain shared the same basic circuitry as PROBEтАЩs. The
difference came in the way those circuits were connected. PROBE was truly sentient, with a firm grasp of
the meaning of the pronounI . CARETAKER, however, was merely a computer, an idiot savant -- very
good at performing its function, but lacking any single iota of imagination. It was CARETAKERтАЩs
function to watch the sky during the long flights between suns, to remain ever vigilant for that one stray bit
of energy that betrayed its creators as intelligent beings.

When it found one, it signaled PROBE awake. It had done so four times now.

The first sighting had come less than two hundred years into the mission, when PROBE was barely within
its search area. Excitement welled up in its circuits like a nova sun. The excitement grew as it scanned the
star in question, noting unmistakable signs of an advanced civilization. However, a quick check of the
starтАЩs position showed it to be outside the narrow cone of space that marked PROBEтАЩs ability to
maneuver.

That was PROBEтАЩs first great disappointment.

The next two contacts were no better. One was with a race on its way back to savagery, no longer able
to repair the few machines that still operated. The other was sketchy and far out of range.

Now it was time to turn to Contact Number Four.

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A single bright star loomed directly ahead on PROBEтАЩs predicted orbit. It was a yellow dwarf (GO
spectral type) and close. In fact, too close. The star actually showed a visible disc in the multi-spectral