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

the ruins of the cities, settlements, and orbital and free-floating habitats of Elder
Culture species, these had been picked clean long ago by the dozens of species that
preceded human colonization. Working examples of Elder Culture technology were
fabulously rare and valuable. There was only a slim chance that the neutrino source
was some kind of artifact, but if it was, and if Mr. Kanza could capture it, his
financial difficulties would be over. He had one big problem: if the garrison that
policed the Ganesh Five system found out about the neutrino source, the Navy
would claim it for the state. That was where Rider Jackson, a criminal turned war
hero, came in.

Rider Jackson had been born and raised on a reef circling a red dwarf star,
Stein 8641. When their sheep ranch failed, Rider Jackson s father ran off on a trade
ship and his mother committed suicide. At age sixteen, Rider Jackson, their only
child, inherited the responsibility of honoring his fam-ilyтАЩs debts. Our Thing, Stein
8641тАЩs parliament, ruled that he should be in-dentured to his fatherтАЩs chief creditors,
the Myer family, until he had paid off all that was owed. Five years later, the day
after war was declared between the Alliance and the Collective, he stole one of the
Myer familyтАЩs ships and lit out, abandoning the ship in the sprawling docks of New
Babylon and turning up the next day at a Navy recruiting office in the planetтАЩs dusty
capital, where he was promptly arrested for carrying false ID, a crime against the
state that earned him ten years indentured labor. Soon afterward, having suffered two
devastating defeats in quick succession, the CollectiveтАЩs armed forces rounded up
everyone with freefall experience from the stateтАЩs pool of indentured workers. Rider
JacksonтАЩs sentence was commuted to ten yearsтАЩ service in the Navy. He fought in
three campaigns in two different systems, and then his drop ship was hit by an
Alliance raider and broke apart. Rider Jackson took charge of a gig and rescued
seventy-eight warm bodies, including the drop shipтАЩs captain. His heroism won him
his lieutenantтАЩs pip, a chestful of medals, and public acclaim, but his criminal history
prevented him rising any higher, and at the end of the war, the Navy stashed him in
the Ganesh Five garrison, with no hope of promotion or transfer, and noth-ing to do
but listen to the self-pitying monologues of his commander, make random checks on
ships passing between the wormholes, and file endless status reports. He still had
seven years to serve, and after that he would be returned to Stein 8641, and the Myer
family.

Mr. Kanza, knowing that Rider Jackson couldnтАЩt afford to buy out the
unserved portion of his contract with the Navy, much less pay what he still owed the
Myer family, had made him an offer he couldnтАЩt refuse: help chase the hot lead on
what might be an Elder Culture artifact in return for fifty percent of any profit. Mr.
Kanza brought to the deal the information heтАЩd uncovered, a ship, and someone to
fly it; Rider Jackson rejigged the garri-sonтАЩs tracking station to cover up the flight of
Mr. KanzaтАЩs tug, and used its deep space array to survey the brown dwarf. He
found two things. The first was a microwatt beacon from an escape pod in orbit
around Ganesh Five B. The second was that there was no longer any anomalous
neutrino flux within the brown dwarf. It looked like Dr. Smith and the !Cha had
captured the neutrino source, but then had got into some kind of trouble that had
forced them to abandon their ship.

No wormhole throat orbited Ganesh Five B; the only way to reach it was
through real space, a round trip of more than sixty days. Rider Jackson couldnтАЩt