"Michael McCollum - The Clouds of Saturn" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCollum Michael)

THE CLOUDS OFSATURN

A Novel By

Michael McCollum



Sci Fi - Arizona, Inc.

Third Millennium Publishing

An Online Cooperative of Writers and Resources




Prologue

The sun is a variable star. Changes in solar output have sent glaciers marching toward the
equator every fifty thousand years or so. The last such episode took place in late prehistoric times
and coincided with the displacement of Neanderthal Man by the Cro-Magnons. Nor has Modern
Man been immune to the effects of the sunтАЩs variability. During the Little Ice Age of the Sixteenth
through Nineteenth Century, a minor reduction in solar output caused the harbors of Iceland and
Greenland to be blocked by ice for 6 months out of every year. At least one Viking colony starved
to death because of the climatic change.

It was not until the first decade of the Twenty Second Century, however, that humanity realized the true
extent of SolтАЩs variability. Beginning in 2102, the sun was wracked by a series of solar flares. As such,
outbursts grew more frequent and violent; astronomers began to reexamine their long held beliefs about
the nature of the sun. It was with understandable horror that they realized Sol was about to enter a period
of long term instability. Projections called for the sunтАЩs output to increase gradually for several hundred
years. While minor on the scale of the universe, the change would render Earth uninhabitable within a
century. If nothing were done to stop it, the Mother of Men would become a twin to Venus -- a
hothouse planet on which liquid water no longer existed.

Faced with extinction, the human race directed its considerable resources toward saving the
home world. No possibility was overlooked. Many research efforts were launched in a period that
became known as the Golden Age of Pure Science. Despite their best efforts, the scientists could
find no practical method for bringing the errant star to heel. After decades of study, EarthтАЩs
leaders reluctantly concluded that humankind would have to abandon its ancestral home. They
began to search the Solar System for a place of refuge.

The haven they chose was not one many would have guessed.
 Chapter 1: The Battle of New Philadelphia


Larson Sands lay in his acceleration couch and watched the dawn asSparrowHawk raced eastward at a
thousand kilometers per hour. Dawn on Saturn was always spectacular, but never more so than on a
battle morning. As the sun climbed the sky, it quickly transformed the world from a black and silver