"Centauri, Arrival" - читать интересную книгу автора (Meier Sid)

Indeed, on the horizon she could see the dark ragged edge of clouds, the boiling darkness that stretched to the horizon. Even as she watched it seemed to approach. "Are the plants protected?"
"We're setting up heat traps, and we've improved on Morgan's sunlamps for the greenery. ButЕhow long will all this last?" He asked it calmly, but his eyes flickered across hers for an answer.
"I don't know." She lifted her hand to point at it, trying to blot the edge of darkness with her fingers. "No one knows. Now let me enjoy the heat, while I still can."
She turned away from him and walked into the gardens as the veil of clouds they called the Churn rolled on towards her.

Episode 2, part 4

"It was him."
"Are you positive?"
"Of course." She tapped her touchpanel confidently as her Second stood over her. The video image on her screen decayed into a stream of static as she wound it back through time, then entered the command to re-apply the encryption.
"Why do we have to re-construct these images each time we look at them?" her Second asked, shifting slightly.
"Security, security, my datajack," she told him. "Until the information lies deep behind the Morgan Industries firewallsЕ"
"He cares more about this data than he does us." She noticed the unconscious clenching of his fist.
"Yes," she drew out the syllable. "Now lookЕ" The video feed had decayed to a stop and now reconstructed itself through three layers of encryption into a face, a hard face with deep black eyes.
"Chairman Yang," the Second said, startled. "Looking right at us."
"Right into the sunglobe, you mean. He was there, and thenЕit looks like he stepped through a hidden panel."
"Well, that's somewhat useful," said her Second. "Another datapoint for the psychchart."
"That we even know what base he's in is useful. Yang is extraordinarily cagey."
"Where is he going, do you think?" he asked her.
"To the surface, my datajack. It doesn't take a probe team to see thatЕ"


Centauri: Arrival, Episode 3

It was time.
Academician Prokhor Zakharov sat staring from his window-lined office above the half-formed jumble of towers that made up University Base. He slowly turned his head to look east, where his new Research Hospital was taking shape, his scientist-builders working wonders with salvaged metals and alloys pulled from Planet's strange crust.
He looked at it blankly and then turned away. He lifted a small glass of vodka, distilled in one of his own labs, and focused on the orange-red xenofields to the south that touched the edges of his territory like reaching fingers.
Here, under the darkness of the Churn, he could feel a malevolence rising off of the tendrils of fungus as they reached out toward his tiny settlement, his monument to the power of the human mind.
"What do they want?" he asked the empty room, his voice nearly inaudible.
No one knew. He looked at the papers on the surface of the smooth metal desk. There it wasЕthe Churn had begun twelve days after the University discovery of the Alien Temple.
The alien structure, he reminded himself sternly. We have no idea what it really is.
He did not believe for a moment that prying open the low curved doors of the structure had caused the layer of clouds to sweep over the Human Settlements. There was no proof, no scientific proof at all.
Still, it was time. He had seen the temple through remote video feeds, but now he had to see it for himself.
He threw back the vodka and winced, quickly grabbing small chunks of chocolate bar from his desk to clear the taste.
Then he rose and headed out the door, exiting his tower.

Episode 3, part 2

Michael Regalis nodded to the guard stationed at the portable perimeter defense that University soldiers had set up around the Alien Temple. The defense even included a visual shroud, so he could not make out the detailing on the sides of the structure until the guard had checked his clearances and waved him through.
And thenЕRegalis' first look at the Temple did not hit him with force so much as put him off balance, upsetting his innate sense of harmony.
The xenofungus gave him the creeps, for one thing, covering the low hills around the Temple in layers that seemed unusually thick, and yet never touched the Temple itself. And the TempleЕlarge and clearly formed from a non-human sensibility, it sat low to the ground, made of series of curves that surrounded a strange concave roof, open to the sky.
And open to the Churn.
When Regalis approached he could see that the Temple was made of a rocklike material covered with tiny pits and cavities. As soft breezes found their way down from the surrounding hills, they slipped around the curved buttresses of the Temple and made strange, almost flutey noises.
Should he? Shouldn't he? He looked around nervously. A small science train with two bright-eyed technicians on board scooted around the far side of the structure. No one seemed to be looking now.
Now.
He stopped and surreptitiously snapped a short vidclip with a tiny portable camera, then immediately encrypted it and uplinked it to a contact at Morgan TV. They would pay dearly for this one, he knew.
Letting go a deep breath, he slipped the camera into a uniform pocket and continued on toward the Temple. It was time for his first shift.

Episode 3, part 3