"Dan Simmons - Orphans of the Helix" - читать интересную книгу автора (Simmons Dan)

"No, ma'am," said the AI.
"Were you thinking of restocking on their forest ring?" said Dem Lia. The plan had been to
avoid any Aenean, Pax, or Ouster worlds or strongholds found along their long voyage away from
human space.
"This orbital forest ring is exceptionally bountiful," said Saigy├┤ the AI, "but our real reason
for awakening you and beginning the in-system deceleration is that someone living on or near the
ring is transmitting a distress signal on an early Hegemony code band. It is very weak, but we
have been picking it up for two hundred and twenty-eight light-years."
This gave them all pause. The Helix had been launched some eighty years after the Aenean Shared
Moment, that pivotal event in human history which had marked the beginning of a new era for most
of the human race. Previous to the Shared Moment, the Church-manipulated Pax society had ruled
human space for three hundred years. These Ousters would have missed all of Pax history and
probably most of the thousand years of Hegemony history that preceded the Pax. In addition to
that, the Helix's time-debt added more than four hundred years of travel. If these Ousters had
been part of the original Hegira from Old Earth or from the Old Neighborhood Systems in the
earliest days of the Hegemony, they may well have been out of touch with the rest of the human
race for fifteen hundred standard years or more.
"Interesting," said Peter Delen Dem Tae, whose blue-band training included profound immersion
in psychology and anthropology.
"Saigy├┤, play the distress signal, please," said Dem Lia.
There came a series of static hisses, pops, and whistles with what might have been two words
electronically filtered out. The accent was early Hegemony Web English.
"What does it say?" said Dem Lia. "I can't quite make it out."
"Help us," said Saigy├┤. The AI's voice was tinted with an Asian accent and usually sounded
slightly amused, but his tone was flat and serious now.
The nine around the table looked at one another again in silence. Their goal had been to leave
human and posthuman Aenean space far behind them, allowing their people, the Amoiete Spectrum
Helix culture, to pursue their own goals, to find their own destiny free of Aenean intervention.
But Ousters were just another branch of human stock, attempting to determine their own
evolutionary path by adapting to space, their Templar allies traveling with them, using their
genetic secrets to grow orbital forest rings and even spherical startrees completely surrounding
their suns.
"How many Ousters do you estimate live on the orbital forest ring?" asked Den Soa, who with her
white training would probably be their diplomat if and when they made contact.
"Seven hundred million on the thirty-degree arc we can resolve on this side of the sun," said
the AI. "If they have migrated to all or most of the ring, obviously we can estimate a population
of several billion."
"Any sign of Akerataeli or the zeplens?" asked Patek Georg. All of the great forest rings and
startree spheres had been collaborative efforts with these two alien races, which had joined
forces with the Ousters and Templars during the Fall of the Hegemony.
"None," said Saigy├┤ "But you might notice this remote view of the ring itself in the center
window. We are still sixty-three AU's out from the ring ... this is amplified ten thousand times."
They all turned to look at the front window where the forest ring seemed only thousands of
kilometers away, its green leaves and yellow and brown branches and braided main trunk curving
away out of sight, the G8 star blazing beyond.


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