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

was a little too sharp. The third skimmed through the dust just like it was
supposed to and sprouted a set of filaments. Sampling programs analyzed the
moon's surface. Specks that were part cell and part electronic device began
drifting down the filaments and executing programs that transformed the moon's
atoms into larger, more elaborate specks. The specks produced machines the
size of insects, the insects produced machines the size of cats, an antenna
crept up the side of a small crater, and an antenna on the Island of Adventure
started transmitting more programs. By the time the ship settled into an orbit
around the third planet, the moon had acquired a complete manufacturing
facility, and the lunar fabrication units had_ started producing scout
machines that could land on the planet itself.

****

Morgan had thought of the terraforming scheme as a political ruse, but
there were people on the ship who took it seriously. With the technology they
had at their disposal, the third planet could be turned into a livable world
within a few decades. For people who had spent their entire lives in enclosed
habitats, it was a romantic idea-- a world where you walked on the surface,
with a sky above you, and experienced all the vagaries of weather and climate.
The only person who had raised any serious objections had been Ari
Sun-Dalt. Some of the valleys they could observe from orbit had obviously been
carved by rivers. The volcano calderas were less spectacular than the
volcanoes of Mars but they were still proof the planet had once been
geologically active. They couldn't overlook the possibility life might be
hiding in some obscure ecological network that was buried under the soil or
hidden in a cave, Ari argued.
Most of the people on the ship greeted that kind of suggestion with
shrugs and smiles. According to Morgan's sampling programs, there were only
about ten people on the ship who really thought there was a statistically
significant possibility the planet might have generated life. Still, there was
no reason they couldn't let Ari enjoy his daydreams a little longer.
"It will only take us an extra two or three years," Ari said. "And then
we'll know we can remodel the place. First we'll see if there's any life. Then
we'll do the job ourselves, if the universe hasn't done it already. And bring
Consciousness to another world."
For Ari's sake-- he really liked Ari in many ways-- Morgan hoped they
might find a few fossilized microorganisms embedded in the rocks. What he did
not expect was a fossil the size of a horse, embedded in a cliff, and visible
to any machine that came within two kilometers of it.

****

Three and a half billion years ago, the planet had emerged from the disk
of material that surrounded its sun. A billion or so years later, the first
long-chain molecules had appeared in the oceans. And the history of life had
begun. In the same way it had begun on Earth.
The long-chain molecules had formed assemblies that became the first
rudimentary cells. Organisms that were something like plants had eventually
begun to absorb the CO2 produced by the volcanoes. The oxygen emitted by the