"Larry Niven - Convergent Series A Collection of Short Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

"Wrong Way Street"




INTRODUCTION

This book is my solution to a moral problem. If you've opened this book, you're already involved, and I suppose you'd better hear about it.

In 1969 I published a short-story collection, The Shape of Space. It was my second collection, my fourth book in five years of writing. The stories were a varied lot, ranging from vignette to novelet length and from hard science fiction to fantasy and mainstream.

Half the stories were set in a single consistent future. The Known Space timeline now covers a thousand years of the future, a huge volume of interstellar space, three collections, and four novels.

In 1975 I did something a lot of friends and strangers had been nagging me to do. I gathered together all of the Known Space stories and published most of them in Tales of Known Space. Two stories were left over, and I was writing a third. Those three science-fiction/detective stories became The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton, published in 1976.

Now, here's the problem. The first of the "Gil the Arm" stories, and many of the stories in Tales of Known Space, came out of The Shape of Space. About half the book.

In the meantime, I keep meeting people who started reading my work during the past eight years, and have heard of The Shape of Space, and can't find it. The old paperback sells well at huckster tables during science-fiction conventions, when it can be found at all. It's easy to say that a reader can get half the stories by spending twice the money on two newer books. But what about "Convergent Series" and "The Deadlier Weapon"? People who never read them seem to know the plot lines; they get told around at parties.

I finally asked some people. Shall I gather up 30,000 words of new stories and put them in a book with 30,000 words of older stories from The Shape of Space? I was told to do it.

If you read The Shape of Space eight years ago... well, it's your money. You may regard this as a chance to see how my style and/or abilities have changed over the past ten years or so. I've added historical notes following some of the stories.

LVCN.



Bordered in Black


Only one figure stood in the airlock, though it was a cargo lock, easily big enough to hold both men. Lean and sandy haired, the tiny figure was obviously Carver Rappaport. A bushy beard now covered half his face. He waited patiently while the ramp was run up, and then he started down.

Turnbull, waiting at the bottom, suppressed growing uneasiness. Something was wrong. He'd known it the moment he heard that the Overcee was landing. The ship must have been in the solar system for hours. Why hadn't she called in?

And where was Wall Kameon?

Returning spacers usually sprinted down the ramp, eager to touch honest concrete again. Rappaport came down with slow, methodical speed. Seen close, his beard was ragged, unkempt. He reached bottom, and Turnbull saw that the square features were set like cement.

Rappaport brushed past him and kept walking.

Turnbull ran after him and fell into step, looking and feeling foolish. Rappaport was a good head taller, and where he was walking, Turnbull was almost running. He shouted above the background noise of the spaceport, "Rappaport, where's Kameon?"

Like Turnbull, Rappaport had to raise his voice. "Dead."

"Dead? Was it the ship? Rappaport, did the ship kill him?"

"No."

"Then what? Is his body aboard?"