"Paul J. McAuley - Rats of the System" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

"I'm sure it won't catch up with us before we reach the star."

"If we make that burn nowтАФ"

"We'll miss the chance to collect the photon data. We're going to die whatever we do, sailor. Let's make
it worthwhile."

"Right."

"Why did you like them? The rats."

"Because they're survivors. Because they've managed to make a living from humans ever since we
invented agriculture and cities. Back on Earth, they were a vermin species, small and tough and smart and
fast-breeding, eating the same food that people ate, even sharing some of the same diseases and
parasites. We took them with us into space because those same qualities made them ideal lab animals.
Did you know that they were one of the first mammal species to have their genome sequenced? That's
why there are so many gengineered varieties. We mostly bred them for meat and fur and biologicals, but
we also raised a few strains that we sold as pets. When I was a little kid, I had a ruffled piebald rat that I
loved as much as any of my sisters and brothers. Charlie. Charlie the rat. He lived for more than a
thousand days, an awfully venerable age for a rat, and when he died I wouldn't allow him to be recycled.
My father helped me make a coffin from offcuts of black oak, and I buried him in a glade in my favorite
citrous forestтАж"

The scientist said, "It sounds like a nice spot to be buried."

Carter said, "It's a good place. There are orchards, lots of little fields. People grow flowers just for the
hell of it. We have eighteen species of mammals roaming about. All chipped of course, but they give you
a feeling of what nature must have been like. I couldn't wait to get out, and now I can't wait to get back.
How dumb is that?"

The scientist said, "I'd like to see it. Maybe you could take me on a picnic, show me the sights. My family
used to get together for a picnic every couple of hundred days. We'd rent part of one of the parklands,
play games, cook way too much food, smoke and drinkтАж"

"My father, he's a pretty good cook. And my mother leads a pretty good choral group. We should all get
together."

"Absolutely."

They smiled at each other. It was a solemn moment. Carter thought he should say something suitable, but
what? He'd never been one for speeches, and he realized now that although the scientist knew his
nameтАФit was stitched to his suitтАФhe didn't know hers.

The scientist said, "The clock's ticking."

Carter said, "Yes, ma'am. I'll get this junk fixed up, and then I'll be right back."

He welded the photon detectors to the blunt nose of the pod and cabled them up. He prepped the
antenna array. After the pod grazed the base of the flare, its computer would compress the raw data and