"John Varley - Titan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varley John)

She thought it was August. Cirocco had worked on keeping them straight since twins generally resent being mistaken for each other. She had gradually realized that April and August didn't care.
But April and August were not ordinary twins.
Their full names were April 15/02 Polo and August 3/02 Polo. That was what was written on their respective test tubes, and that is what the scientists who had been their midwives had put on the birth certificates. W'hich had always struck Cirocco as two excellent reasons why scientists should not be allowed to fool around with experiments that lived and breathed and cried.
Their mother, Susan Polo, had been dead for five years at the time of their births, and. could not protect them. Nobody else seemed ready to give them any mothering, so they had only each other and their three clone-sisters for love. August had told Cirocco once that the five of them had only one close friend while growing up, and that had been a Rhesus monkey with a souped-up brain. He had been dissected when the girls were seven.
"I don't want to make it sound too brutal," August had said on that occasion, a night when some glasses of Bill's soybean wine had been consumed. "Those scientists were not monsters. A lot of them behaved like kindly aunts and uncles. We had just about anything we wanted. I'm sure a lot of them loved us." She had taken another drink. "After all," she said, "we cost a lot of money."
What the scientists got for their money was five quiet, rather spooky geniuses, which is just what they ordered. Cirocco doubted they had bargained for the incestuous homosexuality, but felt they should have expected it, just as surely as the high I.Q. They were all clones of their mother-the daughter of a third-generation Japanese-American and a Filipino. Susan Polo won the Nobel prize in physics and died young.
Cirocco looked at August as the woman studied a photo on the chart table. She was exactly like her famous mother as a young woman: small, with jet-black hair and a trim figure, and dark, expressionless eyes. Cirocco had never thought Oriental faces were as similar as many Caucasians found them to be, but April and August's faces gave nothing away. Their skin was the color of coffee with lots of cream, but in the red light of the Science Module August looked almost black.
She glanced at, Cirocco, showing more excitement than usual for her. Cirocco held her eye for a moment, then looked down. Against a field of pinpoint stars, six tiny lights were arranged in a perfect hexagon..
Cirocco looked at it for a long time.
"It's the damdest thing 1 ever saw on a starplate," she conceded. "What is it?,,
Gaby was strapped to a chair on the other side of the compartment, sucking coffee from a plastic bulb.
"It's the latest exposure of Themis," she said. "I took it over the last hour with my most sensitive equipment and a computer program to justify the rotation."
"I guess that answers my question," Cirocco said. "But what isit?"
Gaby waited a long time before replying, taking another sip.
"It is possible," she said, sounding detached and dreamy, "for several bodies to orbit around a common center of gravity. Theoretically. No one's ever seen it. The configuration is called a rosette."
Cirocco waited patiently. When no one said anything, she snorted.
"in the middle of Saturn's satellite system? For about five minutes, maybe. The other moons would perturb them."
"There's that," Gaby agreed.
"And how would it happen in the first place? The chances against it are tremendous."
"There's that, too."
April and Calvin had entered the room. Now Calvin looked up.
"Isn't anyone going to say it? This isn't a natural arrangement.
Somebody made this."
Gaby rubbed her forehead.
"You haven't heard it all. 1 bounced radar signals off it. They came back telling me Themis was over 1300 kilometers in diameter. Density figures all cockeyed, too, making it less dense than water by quite a bit. 1 thought 1 was getting screwed-up readings because 1 was working at the limits of my equipment. Then 1 got the picture."
"Six bodies or one?" Cirocco asked.
"I can't tell for sure. But everything points to one." "Describe it. What you think you know."
Gaby consulted her printout sheets, but obviously did not need them. The figures were clear in her mind.
"Themis is 1300 klicks across. That makes it Saturn's third
largest moon, about the size of Rhea. It must be flat black all over, except those six points. This is by far the lowest albedo of any body in the solar system, if that interests you. It's also the least dense. There's a strong possibility it's hollow, and a good chance it's not spherical. Possibly disc-shaped, or toroidal, like a donut. Either way, it seems to turn like a plate rolling along its edge, once every hour. That's enough spin so nothing could stay on its surface; the centripetal force would overpower the force of gravity."
"But if it's hollow, and you were on the inside .
Cirocco kept her eyes on Gaby.
"Inside, if it's hollow, it would be equivalent to a force of one- quarter gee. "
Cirocco looked her next question, and Gaby couldn't meet her eyes.
"We're getting closer every day. The seeing can only get better. But I can't promise you when I could he sure about any of this."
Cirocco headed for the door. "I'll have to send what you have."
"But no theories, okay?" Gaby shouted after her. It was the first time Cirocco had seen her less than happy with what she'd seen through a telescope. "At least don't attribute them to me."
"No theories," Cirocco acknowledged. "The facts ought to be plenty."



CHAPTER TWO

INFORMATIONAL DISPATCH #0931
(REPLY TO HOUSTON TRANSMISSION #5455,5-20-25) 5-21-25
DSV RINGMASTER (NASA 447D, L5/1, HOUSTON-COPER- NICUS GCR BASELINE)
JONFS, CIROCCO, MISCOM
SECURITY INTERLOCK *ON* CODE PREFIX DELTADELTA BEGINS.
1. Concur your analysis of Themis as interstellar space vehicle of the generation type. Don't forget we suggested it first.
2. Latest photo follows. Note increased resolution of bright areas. Still no luck finding docking facilities at hub; will keep looking.