"Procyon's Promise" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCollum Michael)

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 slowboatsТ 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: УCould 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?Ф
Once the questions were asked, they could not be ignored. A program was
immediately begun to 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

HenningТs 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 MarsТ 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.
HenningТswas 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 yearТs accumulated pay in
his pocket, stayed ten days, left flat broke, and pronounced himself well
satisfied. It was a testimonial to the diversions provided byHenning Тs
management that the story was widely accepted as completely reasonable. Besides
which, it was true.
Be that as it may, Chryse Haller was bored.
Chryse had arrived atThe Roost two weeks earlier for her first vacation in three
years. She had plunged immediately into the social whirl, sampling most of the
diversions that were not ultimately harmful to oneТs health. She had
playedchemin de fir , blackjack, poker, roulette, and seven-card stapo on the