"Paul J. McAuley - Winning Peace" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

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Carver powered up the podтАЩs systems, moved it out of the cargo bay, and adjusted
its trim with a few puffs of the attitude jets, then fired up its motor. Ten minutes later,
the tiny star of the dock facility dawned beyond the cres-cent and rings of the gas
giant. The comm beeped. Mr. Kanza said, тАЬThat wonтАЩt do you any good, you son
of a whore.тАЭ

тАЬWatch and learn,тАЭ Carver said.

тАЬListen to me carefully. If you donтАЩt do exactly as I say, your brother is a
dead man.тАЭ

тАЬMy brother was killed in action, along with everyone else on his ship.тАЭ

Carver had control of the escape pod and was out of range of the shock stick
hidden on the tug: he could say whatever he liked to Mr. Kanza. It was a good
feeling. When Mr. Kanza started to rage at him, Carver told him that he was going to
have to find some other way of covering his debts, and cut him off.

Far behind the pod, the tug lit its motor; no doubt Mr. Kanza was flying it by
wire, hoping either to bring it close enough to use the shock stick on Carver, or ram
him. He told Useless Beauty that if whatever it had found at the brown dwarf could
be used as a weapon, now was the time to let him know.

тАЬAnd donтАЩt tell me that you didnтАЩt find anything: thereтАЩs no longer a neutrino
source in that strange storm. You fished out some kind of Elder Culture artifact, and
it did a number on your ship.тАЭ

тАЬOne of the Elder Cultures may have had something to do with it,тАЭ Use-less
Beauty said, тАЬbut it was not an artifact.тАЭ

The squat black cylinder of its tank was jammed into the space between the
two acceleration couches, three pairs of limbs folded up in a way that reminded
Carver of a praying mantis. He tried to picture what was inside, a cross between a
squid and a starfish swimming in oily, ammonia-rich water, the tough, nerve-rich
tubules that ordinarily connected it to puppet juve-niles plugged into the systems of
its casing. It was even harder to picture what it was thinking, but Carver was pretty
sure that his survival was at the bottom of its list of priorities.
 He said, тАЬIf it wasnтАЩt an artifact, a machine or whatever, what was it?тАЭ

тАЬA mathematical singularity from a universe where the laws and con-stants of
nature are very different from ours. A little like the software of your computers, but
alive, self-aware, and imbued with a strong survival instinct. Perhaps an Elder Culture
brought it through a kind of wormhole between its universe and ours. Perhaps it is a
traveler unable to find its way home. In any event, it was trapped within the brown
dwarf, and created the storm by epitaxyтАФusing its own form as a template to make
something approximat-ing the conditions of its home, just as my tank contains a
small portion of the ocean where my species evolved. Dr. Smith and I were able to