"Larry Niven - Crashlander (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

NEUTRON STAR

The Skydiver dropped out of hyperspace an even million miles above the neutron star. I needed a
minute to place myself against the stellar background and another to find the distortion Sonya
Laskin had mentioned before she died. It was to my left, an area the apparent size of the Earth's
moon. I swung the ship around to face it.

Curdled stars, muddled stars, stars that had been stirred with a spoon.

The neutron star was in the center, of course, though I couldn't see it and hadn't expected to.
It was only eleven miles across, and cool. A billion years had passed since BVS-1 had burned by
fusion fire. Millions of years, at least, since the cataclysmic two weeks during which BVS-1 was
an X-ray star, burning at a temperature of five billion degrees Kelvin. Now it showed only by its
mass.

The ship began to turn by itself. I felt the pressure of the fusion drive. Without help from me,
my faithful metal watchdog was putting me in a hyperbolic orbit that would take me within one mile
of the neutron star's surface. Twenty-four hours to fall, twenty-four hours to rise ... and during
that time something would try to kill me. As something had killed the Laskins.

The same type of autopilot, with the same program, had chosen the Laskins' orbit. It had not
caused their ship to collide with the star. I could trust the autopilot. I could even change its
program.

I really ought to.

How did I get myself into this hole?

The drive went off after ten minutes of maneuvering. My orbit was established in more ways than
one. I knew what would happen if I tried to back out now.

All I'd done was walk into a drugstore to get a new battery for my lighter!

***

Right in the middle of the store, surrounded by three floors of sales counters, was the new 2603
Sinclair intrasystem yacht. I'd come for a battery, but I stayed to admire. It was a beautiful
job, small and sleek and streamlined and blatantly different from anything that'd ever been built.
I wouldn't have flown it for anything, but I had to admit it was pretty. I ducked my head through
the door to look at the control panel. You never saw so many dials. When I pulled my head out, all
the customers were looking in the same direction. The place had gone startlingly quiet.

I can't blame them for staring. A number of aliens were in the store, mainly shopping for
souvenirs, but they were staring, too. A puppeteer is unique. Imagine a headless, three-legged
centaur wearing two Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent puppets on its arms and you'll have something
like the right picture. But the arms are weaving necks, and the puppets are real heads, flat and


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