"Michael McCollum - Maker 2 - Procyion Promise" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCollum Michael)

the tally. By the narrowest of margins, the resolution passed. Five months later, the probe took up a
parking orbit around the Sun.

Negotiations between the probe and the UN began immediately. The complexities involved in arranging
for both the probeтАЩs overhaul and the exchange of scientific knowledge were considerable. Before any
agreements could be reached, there was much to learn on both sides. To speed the negotiations, the
probe had split off a portion of its circuits to form a separate personality. This new entity, which the
probe dubbed SURROGATE, was intended to act as translator between the probe and its hosts.

Shortly after the probeтАЩs arrival in the solar system, six Pan African spacecraft attacked humanityтАЩs first
visitor from the stars. Two outgunned UN defenders and the probe itself met them. All six attackers were
destroyed in a hard fought battle, but not before they were able to unleash an irresistible weapon against
their target.

In the twenty-first century as in the twenty-fourth, ships of deep space were powered by tiny antimatter
black holes known as I-masses. Human civilization was built on the limitless energy they provided. They
lit manтАЩs cities, smelted his ores, and drove his spacecraft. When the Pan-African warships attacked the
probe, they were used for the first time as deadly weapons.

Each marauding warship took great care with its approach to the scene of battle, placing itself on a
precise trajectory for the probe. Even though each attacker was eventually destroyed before it could
reach the target, the probe found itself the focal point of six converging I-masses.

Two reached their mark.
The primary probe personality was destroyed, but SURROGATE - housed at the end of one of the long
sensor booms - survived. Even so, the age-old dream of the Makers seemed at an end. Damaged as it
was, SURROGATE had no hope of reaching the FTL civilization around Procyon. Worse, the impact of
the I-masses had destroyed all record of the Makers. The surviving probe personality possessed no
single iota of knowledge concerning its creators, their history, their language, or the location of their star
in space.

Out of this situation had come a bargain born of desperation. Since SURROGATE needed to secure the
secret of FTL for the Makers, and humanity needed the Maker knowledge that had survived the attack,
each party agreed to help the other. For its part, the UN agreed to build a slower-than-light starship and
man it with a crew of ten thousand. When the ship was completed, the circuits that housed
SURROGATE was placed aboard, and the ship headed out on the century long trip to Procyon. In
exchange, SURROGATE agreed to share its vast library of knowledge.

The Procyon mission was launched outbound early in 2096. Allotting a century for the journey, and an
additional decade for the crew to bargain for the secret of FTL with whatever native race they
discovered, the expedition was expected to return to the solar system (by FTL starship) no later than
2205.

They were now 183 years overdue.



CHAPTER 2