"Tom Purdom - Fossil Games" - читать интересную книгу автора (Purdom Tom)

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Ari's enhancements included a gland modification that gave him the
ability to switch off his sexual feelings at will. His pairing with Savela
Insdotter had lasted less than two decades, and he had made no attempt to
establish another pairing. Ari had spent most of the voyage, as far as Morgan
could tell, in an asexual state.
There were times, during the last decades of the voyage, when Morgan felt
tempted to emulate him. Morgan's next pairing only lasted twelve years. For
the rest of the voyage, he took advantage of the small number of sexual
opportunities that came his way and distracted himself, during his celibate
intervals, with intellectual projects such as his political studies.
The ship's medical system could install Ari's sexual enhancement in
thirty minutes, as part of the regular medical services included in the
standard embarkation agreement. Morgan put the idea aside every time he
considered it. He had learned to cherish his feelings about women, irrational
as they might be. There was, he knew, no real reason why he should respond to
the flare of a woman's hips or the tilt of a female neck. It was simply a bit
of genetic programming he hadn't bothered to delete. It had no practical value
in a world in which children were created in the workshops of genetic
designers. But he also knew he would be a different person if he subtracted it
from his psychological make up. It was one of the things that kept you human
as the decades slipped by.

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In 2381-- forty-six years before it was scheduled to reach its
destination-- the Island of Adventure intercepted a message from the probe
that had been sent to Rho Eridani. Neither of the stars in the double system
possessed planets. The Green Voyager was crawling toward an empty system.

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In 2398-- one hundred and ninety five years after the ship had begun its
journey-- the medical system replaced Morgan's heart, part of his central
nervous system, and most of his endocrine glands. It was the third time Morgan
had put himself through an extensive overhaul. The last time he had recovered
within three years. This time he spent eight years in the deepest sleep the
system could maintain.

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The first program capsules left the ship while it was still careening
around the 82 Eridani system, bouncing from planet to planet as it executed
the five year program that would eliminate the last twenty percent of its
interstellar speed. There were three capsules and their payloads were packages
a little smaller than Morgan's forefinger.
One capsule malfunctioned while it was still making its way toward the
small moon that orbited the third planet at a distance of 275,000 kilometers.
The second lost two critical programs when it hit the moon at an angle that