"Alastair Reynolds - Spirey And The Queen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

best way for them to function in large numbers without supervision. We
studied insect colonies and imprinted the most useful rules straight into
the wasps' programming. More than six hundred years later, those rules
have percolated to the top. Now the wasps aren't content merely to
organize themselves along patterns derived from living prototypes. Now
they want to become - or at least give rise to - living forms of their
own."
"Life envy."
"Or something very like it."
I thought about what Wendigo had told me, then said: "What about the
second imperative?"
"Trickier. Much trickier." She looked at me hard, as if debating whether
to broach whatever subject was on her mind. "Spirey, what do you know
about Solar War Three?"

The wasps had given up on Yarrow while we traveled. They'd left her on a
corniced plinth in the middle of the terrazzo; poised on her back, arms
folded across her chest, tail and fluke draping asymmetrically over one
side.
"She didn't necessarily fail, Spirey," Wendigo said, taking my arm in her
own unyielding grip. "That's only Yarrow's body, after all."
"The Queen managed to read her mind?"
There was no opportunity to answer. The chamber shook, more harshly than
when Mouser had gone up. The vibration keeled us to the floor, Wendigo's
metal arms cracking against the tesselated marble. As if turning in her
sleep, Yarrow slipped from the plinth.
"Home," Wendigo said, raising herself from the floor.
"Impossible. Can't have been more than two hours since Mouser was hit.
There shouldn't be any response for another four!"
"They probably decided to attack us regardless of the outcome of their
last attempt. Kinetics."
"You sure there's no defense?"
"Only good luck." The ground lashed at us again, but Wendigo stayed
standing. The roar which followed the first impact was subsiding, fading
into a constant but bearable complaint of tortured ice.
"The first probably only chipped us - maybe gouged a big crater, but I
doubt that it ruptured any of the pressurised areas. Next time could be
worse."
And there would be a next time, no doubt about it. Kinetics were the only
weapon capable of hitting us at such long range, and they did so by sheer
force of numbers. Each kinetic was a speck of iron, accelerated to a
hair's breadth below the speed of light. Relativity bequeathed the speck a
disproportionate amount of kinetic energy - enough that only a few impacts
would rip the splinter to shreds. Of course, only one in a thousand of the
kinetics they fired at us would hit - but that didn't matter. They'd just
fire ten thousand.
"Wendigo,'' I said. "Can we get to your ship?"
"No," she said, after a moment's hesitation. "We can reach it, but it
isn't fixed yet."
"Doesn't matter. We'll lift on auxiliaries. Once we're clear of the