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

inside the helmet, scanning the black sky for some sign of the ship that had set off the guard station
alarms.

тАЬStatus check!тАЭ she ordered.

For the first time since she had left the daycruiserтАЩs airlock, the computer had nothing to say.

тАЬStatus check,тАЭ she repeated.

Again, there was only silence.

тАЬDamn!тАЭ she muttered. She did not have time to consider the implications of the balky computer for it
was at that moment that she saw the ship.

It was spherical in shape and getting larger by the second. Even with the difficulty of judging relative size
in space, it was obvious that this was no rich manтАЩs yacht. If anything, it was close to being the largest
spacecraft Chryse had ever seen.

But its size was merely something she noted in passing, hardly worth mentioning when compared to the
vesselтАЩs obvious peculiarities. For almost as long as men had built spaceships, their craft had ridden on
tails of plasma fire. A spacecraft drive flare was bright enough to be seen from one side of the solar
system to the other - or to burn out the retinas of anyone incautious enough to stare at one for more than
a second. Yet, the newcomer was decelerating with no sign of a flare. Whatever shipyard had built it,
Chryse was willing to bet it could not be found anywhere in the solar system.

Mankind, it seemed, was about to welcome its second visitor from the far stars.

#

Julius Gruenmeier scowled, as Achilles, the largest asteroid in the leading Trojan group, grew steadily
larger through the bubble of the supply boat. He watched as the domes, observation instruments, and
communications gear of the System Institute for the Advancement of Astronomical Observation -
SIAAO for short - slowly rose into view over AchillesтАЩ jagged horizon. Achilles Observatory (along with
its twin on Aeneas asteroid in the trailing Trojans) looked farther out into space than any other
observatory in the solar system. When Achilles and Aeneas were working in concert, they anchored both
ends of a 1.3 billion kilometer long baseline - far enough to be able to separate binary stars in the
Andromeda galaxy into their component parts.

Not that they would be able to maintain that capability for long. Gruenmeier, in his role as AchillesтАЩ
Operations Manager, was returning from a meeting with the SIAAO Comptroller. The occasion was the
ComptrollerтАЩs yearly trip out from Earth, and the subject - next yearтАЩs operating budget. The news was
bad.

It was common knowledge that the Institute had made some unwise investments in the last several years.
What no one outside the Board of Trustees had known was just how shaky finances really were. They
knew now. Operating budgets were to be cut drastically over the next three years until the InstituteтАЩs
portfolio could be returned to its former state of health. The cuts were sufficiently deep that Gruenmeier
did not see how he would be able to keep both Achilles and Aeneas operating.

He was still pondering ways to slash expenses without idling any prime instruments when the supply boat