"Michael McCollum - Maker 2 - Procyion Promise" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCollum Michael)bump. The FTL program had long since passed the point of economic viability. Yet, the effort continued
apace. For while the Makers were mounting their assault on the light barrier, they found a more compelling reason than mere curiosity to break free of their prison. Their stellar system was beginning to run lowon the raw materials Maker civilization needed to sustain itself. The first signs were barely noticeable, even to the economists who kept careful watch over such things. Eventually curves could be projected far enough into the future to foretell a time when civilization must inevitably collapse of resource starvation. To avert catastrophe the Makers would have to obtain an infusion of new resources, either by importing raw materials from nearby stars or else transplanting their civilization to virgin territory. Unfortunately, both options required a working faster-than-light drive. The frustrated scientists redoubled their efforts. It was not until another hundred millennia had passed that a Maker philosopher began to wonder if they were asking the right questions. The Great Thinker had dedicated his life to the study of the years immediately following the slowboatsтАЩ return from the stars. He noted that Maker science had taken great intuitive leaps in those years. The old records told of many cases where the combined knowledge of two races had led to discoveries unsuspected by either. His questions were as fundamental as they were simple: тАЬCould it be that our concepts of how FTL may be achieved are wrong? Is the failure to break the light barrier simply a matter of having missed the obvious? If so, might not some other civilization have avoided our error and found the true path to FTL?тАЭ provide an answer. At first, it was a minor adjunct to the FTL research project. But as answers kept coming up negative, as each promising avenue of approach turned out to be a dead end, the program to PROBE the knowledge of alien civilizations grew. By the time humanity discovered agriculture, it was all the program there was. PART I: HOMECOMING CHAPTER 1 HenningтАЩs Roostwas renowned throughout the solar system. Its reputation stretched from the intermittently molten plains of Mercury to the helium lakes of Pluto, from the upper reaches of the Jovian atmosphere to the subterranean settlements burrowed deeply into the red surface of MarsтАЩ dusty plains. Wherever men and women worked at hard or dangerous jobs, wherever boredom and terror were normal components of life,The Roost was a standard subject of conversation. HenningтАЩswas a pleasure satellite, the largest ever built. Its owners had placed it in solar orbit ten million kilometers in front of Earth. There was a story told of a spaceman who had arrived at The Roost with a yearтАЩs accumulated pay in his pocket, stayed ten days, left flat broke, and pronounced himself well |
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