"Continuing Time - 98 - Lord November" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moran Daniel Keys)

Sheila Moore lowered her voice. УKilled Janssen. ThatТs what I heard. Blew his
slip completely away.Ф
From topside, the beachhead is not impressive. There is a small cluster of tiny,
pressurized buildings. In an octagonal arrangement at the limits of the cluster,
tall monoliths generate a heavy magnetic field that helps protect the
inhabitants beneath from JupiterТs otherwise lethal radiation storms. It is only
the first of an increasingly complex series of barriers designed to protect the
colonists from that radiation.
An irony, this, and not a subtle one. Once the colony at Ganymede is no more,
humans will not attempt to live near a gas giant comparable to Jupiter for over
a hundred years. The incidental radiation at Jupiter is inconvenient to the
point of frequent fatalities for humans constrained to work with tools no better
than those of the mid-twenty-first century. Within another fifty years the
problems will be nearing triviality; but by then the human race will have the
tachyon star drive, and much better real estate than Jupiter to work with.
The irony? The next time humans will make an attempt similar to this one is in
the mid-twenty-second century Gregorian, a world that orbits a barely subsolar
planet named Prometheus.
The world is November.

The colonyТs surface is not impressive; but like the tip of an iceberg, like any
Lunar city, the surface of the beachhead only hints at the labyrinths that
stretch below. The analogy does not extend beyond that point: the Ganymean
beachhead colonists are struggling against an environment that is colder and
deadlier than LunaТs, colder and much deadlier than that of an iceberg.
On that Sunday УmorningФ in October, the colonyТs routine has been disrupted by
the presence of the Zaradin ship, some three hundred meters from the central
surface airlock. They know it is a ship from its behavior, because it moved
through space, because their telescopes watched it approach, and because the
humans have with their own eyes watched it land atop the structures they have
dug into the frozen ground. The ship resembles no vehicle that has ever been
constructed by humans, and when they watch it too long it gives them headaches.
Tyrel November would have recognized the vehicleЧthough he might not have felt
it necessary to be polite to the Dalmas Missionary inside.
That Sunday, on the door to Father Michael WellsmithТs makeshift church, there
is a note.
The note says:
The ten and twelve oТclock services are canceled.
ЧFather Michael
УBear.Ф
Bear Corona looked up from his reading tablet at Father MichaelТs approach. He
was a super-jumbo-sized man wearing jeans and a sweater that were almost as
black as his beard. The nickname he bore gave him mild amusement; at least he
hadnТt been stuck with УTiny.Ф He was slightly surprised to find Father Michael
up and about. УLittle late for you, isnТt it?Ф He glanced at his reading tablet,
tapped for the time: УItТs after three.Ф
Father Michael Wellsmith shook his head. A tall, spare man with clear, pale gray
eyes, at that moment he looked as tired as Bear had ever seen him. The faint
wrinkles that were always visible around his eyes had grown deep. УCanТt sleep.
ArenТt you cold in here?Ф