"Allen Steele - Kronos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Steele Allen)

"Deep breath, hold it," Peter says.

Kinnard obliges, then Anna releases the catheter and his bladder lets go for the first time in nine
months. He gasps in agony, almost wishing that they had left him under.

When it is over, Anna takes the bag to the recycling chute. Peter gently pulls the tubes from Kinnard's
arms and gives him a soaked sponge to suck on; then, without being asked, he reaches up to a ceiling
monitor and switches it to a real-rime image from outside the ship.

There, on the screen, is his destination. Kinnard stares for a long time at the immense ringed planet.
"Ship?" he finally asks.

"She's fine, Captain." Peter favors him with a rare smile. "A-okay, everything is. All conditions green."

Kinnard nods. He raises his head a little. Eight men and women still sleep in tanks arranged along the
walls of the hibernation deck. The captain wonders what strange dreams float through their slow-time
minds; he cannot recall his own.

"Good," he says, his vocal cords rasping from disuse. "Thanks for ... taking care of me." He pauses
and swallows. "Now get ... me out this thing."

****

3.11.2070 0610Z

The Pax Astra Royal Navy frigate Intrepid falls toward Saturn, inexorably drawn into the planet's
gravity well as the vessel continues its long deceleration burn.

Sixty meters in length, Intrepid is relatively small for a ship with a maximum range of nine a.u.'s.
Designed for military missions rather than exploration or trade, few accommodations have been made for
passengers and none for freight, other than the two missile pods slung on either side of its forward hull
and the manta-like shuttle moored beneath its wasp-waisted midsection. Imagine a half-liter bottle--the
payload module--with its spout glued to that of a three-quarter liter bottle--the engine module--and you
essentially have the warship's architecture.

Mounted beneath the forward module is a large round aerobrake shield. Its ceramic tiles, each a
different color, have been carefully arranged so that they form the warship's figurehead: an angel with a
sword, her wings spread wide as if flying through space.

Intrepid's nuclear-pulse main engine has fired continually ever since the ship left the Moon two
hundred and seventy-five standard days ago, its lasers fissioning the deuterium pellets constantly fed into
the reactor chamber, causing the uninterrupted string of tiny nuclear explosions which gradually
accelerated the ship, at the end of its boost phase, to nearly one-tenth light speed. As Intrepid passed
through Jupiter's orbit one hundred and sixty eight days ago, its crew flipped the ship around until its
bell-shaped engine nozzle was pointed in the direction of flight. Ever since then, the ship has been
applying the brakes as a long prelude to entering Saturnine space.

"Begin MECO at ten, on my mark..."

"Copy that, sir. Ready for MECO."