"Rudy Rucker & John Shirley - Pockets" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rucker Rudy)

"You see?" said Manda. "I told you guys we needed a physicist."
"What ring? "said Barley.
"A space bubble is inherently unstable," said Dad. "It wants to tear loose or flatten
down. The whole secret of the DeGroot tech was to wrap a superquantum nanosheet around
bubbles. Bubble wrap. In your Flatland model it's a circle around the neck. Make a
bubble, Barley."
A new bubble bulged up, and this time Wendel noticed that there was indeed a bright
line around the throat of the neck. A line with a gap in it, like the open link of a chain.
"That's the entrance," said Dad, pointing to the little gap. "The navel. Now show
how you model a tunnel."
 "We're not sure about the tunnels," said Puneet. "We're expecting you can help us with th
cruised the Bharat University Physics Department site and found a Chandreskar-Tho
solution that looks likeтАФcan you work it for me, Xiao-Xiao?"
Xiao-Xiao leaned toward the Flatland simulation, her lavender eyes reflecting the sc
She, too, wore a modern uvvy-style computer controller. Following Puneet's instruct
Xiao-Xiao bulged a second bubble up from the plane, about a foot away from the
one. A Square slid into the first one of them and A Pentagon into the other. And now
bubbles picked up a side-to-side motion, and lumps began sticking out of them, and it ju
happened that two of the lumps touched and now there was a tunnel between the two bubbl
"Look at the screens now," said Barley. "That's Square's view on the left. And Pentag
view on the right."
Square's view showed a lattice of Squares as before, but the lattice lines were warped
flawed, and in the flawed region there was a sub-lattice of nodes showing copies of
Pentagon. And the Pentagon's view lattice included a wedge of Squares.
"That's a start," said Dad. "But, you know, these pictures of yoursтАФ they're just toys. Yo
talking all around the edges of what the pockets are. You're missing the essence of what th
really about. It's not that they spontaneously bulge up out of our space. It's more that th
raining down on us. From something out here." He gestured at the space ab
Flatland. "There's a shape up thereтАФwith something inside it. I've picked up kind of a fee
for it."
Barley and Xiao-Xiao stared silently at him, their mirrored eyes shining.
"That's why we need you, Rothman," said Manda, finally.
"That's right," said Puneet. "The problem isтАФwhen it comes to this new tech, we're bo
too."

"I'll tell you what I think," Wendel said gravely. "I think you're lying to them about what
can do, Dad."
It was nearly midnight. Wendel was tired and depressed. They were sitting in
abandoned DeGroot plant's seemingly endless cafeteria, waiting for their daily time-slot
the nanomatrix. Almost the only ones there. The rest of their so-called team hadn't b
coming in. Manda and Puneet preferred the safety of San Jose while Barley and Xiao-X
had completely dropped out of sight. What a half-assed operation this was.
Wendel and his Dad were eating tinny-tasting stew and drinking watery coffee from
vending machines along the wall opposite the defunct buffets. It was a long, overly lit room
far end not quite visible from here, with pearly white walls and a greenish floor, asymmet
rows of round tables like lily pads on the green pond of the floor, going on and on. End
Media shared the cafeteria with the other scavenging little companies that had licensed ac
to the nanomatrix. None of the reputable firms wanted to touch it.
"Don't talk about it in here, son," Dad said, listlessly stirring his coffee with a plastic sp
"We're not alone, you wave."