"Niven, Larry - One Face" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

"All right!" Verd yelped. More softly, "All right. I'll resign."
The autodoc mended two cracked ankle bones, injected mysterious substances into the badly bruised lower terminal of his Achilles tendon, and ordered a week of bed rest.
Strac's plans were compatible. He had ordered the ship to Earth. Since the Goat was still moving at nearly lightspeed, and had gone well past the solar system, the trip would take about two weeks.
Verd began to enjoy himself. For the first time since the last disastrous Jump, he was able to stop worrying for more than minutes at a time. The pressure was off. The responsibility was no longer his. He even persuaded Lourdi to cooperate with Strac. At first she would have nothing to do with the mutineers, but Verd convinced her that the passengers depended on her. Professional pride was a powerful argument.
After a week on his back Verd started moving around the ship, trying to get an idea of the state of the ship's morale. He did little else. He was perversely determined not to interfere with the new captain.
Once Laspia Waitress stopped him in the hall. "Captain, I've decided to take you into my confidence. I am an ARM, a member of the Central Government Police of Earth. There's a badly wanted man aboard this ship." And before Verd could try to humor her out of it she had produced authentic-looking credentials.
"He's involved in the Free Wunderland conspiracy," she went on. "Yes, it still exists. We had reason to believe he was aboard the Hogan's Goat, but I wasn't sure of it until he found some way to disarm me. I still haven't identified him yet. He could be anyone, even--"
"Easy, easy," Verd soothed her. "I did that. I didn't want anyone wandering around my ship with concealed weapons."
Her voice cracked. "You fool! How am I going to arrest him?"
"Why should you? Who would you turn him over to if you did? What harm can he do now?"
"What harm? He's a revolutionary, a-- a seditionist!"
"Sure. He's fanatically determined to free Wunderland from the tyranny of the Central Government of Earth. But Wunderland and the Central Government have been dead for ages, and we haven't a single Earthman on board. Unless you're one."
He left her sputtering helplessly.
When he thought about it later it didn't seem so funny. Many of the passengers must be clinging to such an outmoded cause, unwilling to face the present reality. When that defense gave out, he could expect cases of insanity.
Surprisingly, Strac had talked to nobody, except to ask questions of the crew members. If he had plans, they were all his own. Perhaps he wanted one last look at Earth, ancient grandmother Earth, dead now of old age. Many passengers felt the same.
Verd did not. He and Lourdi had last seen Earth twelve years ago-- subjective time-- when the Goat was getting her life-support systems rejuvenated. They had spent a wonderful two months in Rio de Janeiro, a hive of multicolored human beings moving among buildings that reached like frustrated spacecraft toward the sky. Once they had even seen two firemanes, natives of l'Elephant, shouldering their way unconcerned among the bigger humans, but shying like fawns at the sight of a swooping car. Perhaps firemanes still lived somewhere in the smoky arms of this galaxy or another. Perhaps even humans lived, though they must be changed beyond recognition. But Verd did not want to look on the corpse face of Earth. He preferred to keep his memories unspoiled.
He was not asked.
On the tenth day the Goat made turnover. Verd thought of the drive beam sweeping its arc across deserted asteroidal cities. Neutronium converted to a destroying blast of pure light. In civilized space a simple turnover required seconds of calculation on the part of the Brain, just to keep the drive beam pointed safely. Anything that light touched would vanish. But now there was nothing to protect.
On the fifteenth ship's-day morning the Earth was a wide, brilliant crescent, blinding bright where the seas had dried across her sunward face. The Sun shone with eerie greenish-white radiance beyond the polarized windows. Verd and Lourdi were finishing breakfast when Strac appeared outside the one-way transparent door. Lourdi let him in.
"I thought I'd better come personally," said Strac. "I've called for a meeting in the crew common room in an hour. I'd appreciate it if you'd be there, Verd."
"I'd just as soon not," said Verd. "Thanx anyway. Have a roast dove?"
Strac politely declined, and left. He had not repeated his invitation.
"He wasn't just being polite," Lourdi told him. "He needs you."
"Let 'im suffer."
Lourdi took him gently by the ears and turned him to face her-- a trick she had developed to get his undivided attention. "Friend, this is the wrong time to play prima donna. You talked me into serving the usurper on grounds that the passengers needed my skills. I'm telling you they need yours."
"Dammit, Lourdi, if they needed me I'd still be captain!"
"They need you as a crewman!"
Verd set his jaw and looked stubborn. Lourdi let go, patted his ears gently, and stepped back. "That's my say. Think it through, Lord and Master."
Six people circled the table. Verd was there, and Lourdi and Parliss and Chanda. Strac occupied the captain's chair, beneath the Brain screen. The sixth man was Jimm Farmer.
"I know what we have to do now," said Strac. His natural dignity had deepened lately, though his shoulders sagged as if ship's gravity were too much for him, and his thin, dark face had lost the ability to smile. "But I want to consider alternatives first. To that end I want you all to hear the answers to questions I've been asking you individually. Lourdi, will you tell us about the Sun?"
Lourdi stood up. She seemed to know exactly what was wanted.
"It's very old," she said. "Terribly old and almost dead. After our Jumper went funny the Sun seems to have followed the main sequence all the way. For awhile it got hotter and brighter and bigger, until it blew up into a red giant. That's probably when Mercury disappeared. Absorbed.
"Sol could have left the main sequence then, by going nova for example, but if it had there wouldn't be any inner planets. So it stayed a red giant until there wasn't enough fuel to bum to maintain the pressure, and then the structure collapsed.
"The Sun contracted to a white dwarf. What with unradiated heat working its way out, and heat of contraction, and fusion reactions still going on inside, it continued to give off light, and still does, even though for all practical purposes there's no fuel left. You can't burn iron. So now the Sun's a greenish dwarf, and in a few million years it'll be a black one."
"Only millions?"
"Yes, Strac. Only millions."
"How much radiation is being put out now?"
Lourdi considered. "About the same as in our time, but it's bluer light. The Sun is much hotter than we knew it, but all its light has to radiate through a smaller surface area. Do you want figures?"
"No thanx, Lourdi. Jimm. Farmer, could you grow foodstuffs under such a star?"
Peculiar question, thought Verd. He sat up straighter, fighting a horrible suspicion.
Jimm looked puzzled, but answered readily. "If the air was right and I had enough water, sure I could. Plants like ultraviolet. The animals might need protection from sunburn."
Strac nodded. "Lourdi, what's the state of the galaxy?"
"Lousy," she said promptly. "Too many dead stars, and most of what's left are blue-white and white giants. Too hot. I'll bet that any planet in this neighborhood that has the right temperature for life will be a gas giant. The young stars are all in the tips of the galactic arms, and they've been scattered by the spin of the galaxy. We can find some young stars in the globular clusters. Do you want to hear about them?"
"We'd never reach them," said Verd. His suspicion was a certainty. He blew orange smoke and waited, silently daring Strac to put his intention into words.
"Right," said Strac. "Chanda, how is the Brain?"
"Very, very sick. It might stop working before the decade's end. It'll never lost out the century, crippled as it is." Chanda wasn't looking so good herself. Her eyes were red, underlined with blue shadows. Verd thought she had lost mass. Her hair hadn't had its usual care. She continued, as if to herself, "Twice I've given it ordinary commands and gotten the Insufficient Data sign. That's very bad. It means the Brain is starting to distrust the data in its own memory banks."
"Just how bad is that?"
"It's a one-way street, with a wiped mind at the end. There's no way to stop it."
"Thanx, Chanda." Strac was carrying it off, but beneath his battered dignity he looked determined and frightened. Verd thought he had reason. "Now you know everything," he told them. "Any comments?"
Parliss said, "If we're going star hunting we should stop on Pluto and shovel up an air reserve. It'd give us a few decades leeway."