"Jerry Pournelle - He Fell into a Dark Hole" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pournelle Jerry)

HE FELL INTO A DARK
HOLE
Jerry Pournelle


This story is the reason I am editor of this book. Some years ago my
friend and partner Larry Niven published a story called "Neutron Star"
which made use of what was then a new concept, neutron stars. He won
a Hugo with the story, and also introduced the idea into science fiction.

I couldn't be absolutely first with Black Holes. There had been a few
stories about Holes already published although I hadn't seen them.
(Writers have very little time to read fiction.) Still, I would be among the
first, and with any luck I'd be able to do for Black Holes what Larry
Niven had done for neutron stars.

I set the story in my world of the CoDominium, which takes us from a
few years hence into the far future. A number of my other storiesтАФthe
best known being THE MERCENARY and THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE
(with Larry Niven)тАФmake use of this "future history". The series
assumes that the United States and the Soviet Union end the cold war by
joining in an uneasy alliance, Their respective governments find it far
better that there be only two Great Powers, even as rivals, than for there
to be a number of independent power centers. As a part of this alliance
structure they create the CoDominium Space Navy. They also try to
control all scientific research, since new developments might threaten
the CoDominium's supremacy.

As a result there is little basic or theoretical research, and nearly
everyone has forgotten about Black Holes, until тАж


CDSN Captain Bartholomew Ramsey watched his men check out, each
man leaving the oval entry port under the satanic gaze of the
master-at-arms. After nearly two years in space the men deserved
something more exciting than twenty hours dirtside at Ceres Base, but
they were eager for even that much. CDSS Daniel Webster got all the long
patrols and dirty outsystem jobs in the Navy because her captain didn't
protest. Now, when these men got to Luna Base and Navy Town, Lord help
the local girlsтАж

Well, they'd be all right here, Ramsey thought. The really expensive
pleasures were reserved for Belt prospectors and the crews of
Westinghouse mining ships. Bart glanced at the screens displaying ships
docked at Ceres. None of the big ore-processing ships were in Thorstown.
Things should be pretty quiet. Nothing Base Marines couldn't handle, even
if Daniel Webster's crew hadn't been on a good drunk for twenty months.
Ramsey turned away from the entry port to go back to his cabin.

It was difficult to walk in the low gravity of Ceres. Very inconvenient