"Larry Niven - Building Harlequin's Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

We'd both like to thank Steven Barnes, who introduced us, and has given us both many tools across
many years. The Fairwood Writers read the whole novel in draft, and made many excellent suggestions.
They are David Addleman, Darragh Metzger, John A. Pitts, Allan Rousselle, David R. Silas, Renee
Stern, and Patrick and Honna Swenson. The members of the LARRYNIVEN-L list helped out with
naming a planet. G. David Nordley spent time chatting with us about ship designs. We'd also like to
thank the late Bob Forward for chats about this book, and for inspiring early star drive designs.




PROLOGUE: Chaos



Year 894, John Glenn shiptime



Erika was cold and Gabriel was warm. She wouldn't have been interested in this stuff anyway.

Erika was one pilot of the carrier John Glenn. John Glenn was currently at rest, safely orbiting wide
around the gas giant planet Harlequin, and not in need of a pilot.

Gabriel headed the terraforming team, chartered to create a habitable moon from the jumble of raw
material that made up Harlequin's moon system. Four of the team were warm now, far too many in the
long term; but during these few decades they would accomplish most of what needed doing. Then they
would wait for the moon system to settle down again.

The Large Pusher Tugs, all three of them, were thrusting hard against Moon Ten. Their fusion engines
sprayed a trident of light across the sky. The lesser Moon Twenty-six was already in place, orbiting
Moon One since last year. That orbit wasn't stable-it shrank steadily within the cloud of impact debris
around Moon One-but that didn't matter. Moon Twenty-six would be gone in a few days.

Gabriel sent: "John Glenn calling LPT-1. Wayne, how you doing?"

"Nearly finished here, I think. Astronaut concurs. Check our orbit."

"I did that. Start shutting down the motors."
In four hours, Moon Ten was falling free.

When this phase was over, Harlequin's moons would have to be recounted. There would be fewer of
them.

Gabriel considered a meal and sleep. The moons wouldn't collide for fifteen days yet... but he ordered a
squeeze of stew and stayed at his post. One loose moon wouldn't matter; there was no living thing to be
harmed in Harlequin's moon system, and minor accidents could be fixed. It was the LPTs he was worried
about. Lose his spacecraft and he'd lose the game.

The peppery smell of warming vegetables and broth made his stomach rumble.