"Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle - Fallen Angels" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

Riverdale, NY 10471
www.baen.com

ISBN: 0-671-72052-X

Cover art by Bob Eggleton

First printing, December 1992

Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020

Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH
Printed in the United States of America
firm enough to walk on. An illusion; a geography of vapors as insubstantial
as the dreams of youth. If he were to set foot upon them . . . The clouds did
not float in free fall, as was proper, but in an acceleration frame that could
hurl the scoopship headlong into an enormous ball of rock and iron and
smash it like any dream.
Falling, they called it.
Alex felt the melancholy stealing over him again. Nostalgia? For that
germ-infested ball of mud? Not possible. He could barely remember Earth.
Snapshots from childhood; a chaotic montage of memories. He had fallen
down the cellar steps once in a childhood home he scarcely recalled.
Tumbling, arms flailing, head thumping hard against the concrete floor. He
hadn't been hurt; not really. He'd been too small to mass up enough kinetic
energy. But he recalled the terror vividly. Now he was a lot bigger, and he
would fall a lot farther.
His parents had once taken him atop the Sears Tower and another time
to the edge of the Mesa Verde cliffs; and each time he had thought what an
awful long way down it was. Then, they had taken him so far up that down
ceased to mean anything at all.
Alex stared out of PiranhaтАЩs windscreen at the cloud deck, trying to
conjure that feeling of height; trying to feel that the clouds were down and
he was up. But it had all been too many years ago, in another world. All he
could see was distance. Living in the habitats did that to you. It stole height
from your senses and left you only with distance.
He glanced covertly at Gordon Tanner in the copilot's seat. If you were
born in the habitats, you never knew height at all. There were no memories
to steal. Was Gordon luckier than he, or not?
The ship sang. He was beginning to hear it now.
And Alex MacLeod was back behind a stick, where God had meant him
to be, flying a spaceship again. Melancholy was plain ingratitude! He had
plotted and schemed his way into this assignment. He had pestered Mary
 But bitter because ... That part he did not want to think about. Just enjoy
the moment; become one with it. If this was to be his last trip, he would
enjoy it while he could. If everything went A-OK, he'd be back upstairs in a
few hours, playing the hero for the minute or so that people would care. A
real hero, not a retired hero. Then back in the day-care center wiping snotty