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

"It's Gene," Gaby said. "I've been making it with both Gene and Calvin. Like 1 say, it's no big thing for me. I know Calvin's got this thing for me. I'm used to that. At home, Id just cool him off. Here, I fuck with him to keep him happy. It makes very little difference to me either way.
"But I'm fucking Gene because he.... he has this.... this pressure. You know?" She had bailed her hands into fists. Now she opened them and looked to Cirocco for understanding.
"I've had some experience with it, yes." Cirocco kept her voice even.
"All right, he doesn't satisfy you. He told me that. It bothered him. That kind of intensity scares me, maybe because I don't understand it. I've been seeing him to try to ease his tension."
Cirocco pursed her lips.
"Let me get this straight. Are you asking me to take him off your hands?"
"No, no, I'm not asking you anything. I told you, I'm just making you aware of the problem, if you weren't already. What you do about it is up to you."
Cirocco nodded. "All right. I'm glad you told me. But he's going to have to live with this. He's stable, well-adjusted, a bit of a dominating personality, but he's got it well under control or he wouldn't he here."
Gaby nodded. "Whatever you think best."
"One more thing. It's no part of your duty to keep anyone fully satisfied. Any burden you feel in that direction is self- assumed."
"I understand that."
"Just so you do. I'd hate to think you thought I expected it of you. Or that you expected it of me." She searched the other woman's eyes until Gaby looked away, then reached over and patted her knee.
"Besides, it'll take care of itself. We're all going to be too busy to think much about screwing."




CHAPTER THREE

From a ballistic standpoint, Themis was a nightmare.
No one had ever tried to orbit a toroidal body. Themis was 1300 kilometers across and only 250 kilometers wide. The torus was flat along the outside, and 175 kilometers from top to bottom. The density of the torus varied radically, supporting the view that it was composed of a thick floor along the outside, an atmosphere about that, and a thin canopy arching overhead holding the air inside.
Then there were the six spokes, 420 kiloineters tall. They were elliptical in cross-section, with major and minor axes of .100 kilometers and 50 kilemeters, respectively, except near the base where they flared out to join the torus. in the center was the hub, more massive than the spokes, 160 kilometers in diameter, with a 100-kilometer hole in the center.
Trying to cope with a body like that was tantamount to a nervous breakdown for the ship's computer, and for Bill, who had to make a model the computer would believe in.
The easiest orbit would have been in the equatorial plane of Saturn, enabling them to use the velocity they already had. But that was not possible. Themis was oriented with its axis of rotation parallel to the equatorial plane. Since the axis passed
through the hole at the center of Themis, any Saturn-equatorial orbit Cirocco might assume would have Ringmaster passing through areas of wildly fluctuating gravitational attraction.
The only viable possibility was an orbit in the equatorial plane of Themis. Such an orbit would be expensive in terms of angular momentum. it had the single advantage of being stable, once achieved.
The maneuvering began before they reached Saturn. During the last day of approach their course was re-calculated. Cirocco and Bill relied on Earth-based computers and navigational aids as far away as Mars and Jupiter. They lived in CONMOD and watched Saturn grow larger in the aft television screens.
Then the long burn was initiated.
During a lull in her work, Cirocco turned on the camera in SCIMOD. Gaby looked up with a harried expression.
"Rocky, can't you do something about that vibration?" "Gaby, the engine function is, as they say, nominal. They're just going to shake, that's all."
"Best observing time of the whole fucking trip," Gaby muttered. In the seat next to Cirocco, Bill laughed.
"Five minutes, Gaby," he said. "And I really think we ought to let them burn as long as we planned. It would work out so much nicer that way."
The engines shut down on the tick and they watched for final confirmation that they were where they wanted to be.
"This is Ringmaster; C. bones commanding. We have arrived in Saturn orbit at 1341.453 hours, Universal Time. I'll send up the prelims for a correcting burn when we come out from behind. Meanwhile, I'm going off this channel."
She slapped the appropriate switch.
"Anybody who wants to take a look outside, this is going to be your only chance."
It was tight, but August and April and Gene and Calvin man- aged to squeeze into the cramped room. After checking with Gaby, Cirocco turned the ship ninety degrees.
Saturn was a dark gray hole, seventeen degrees wide, covering 1000 times the area of the moon as seen from Earth. The rings were an incredible forty degrees from side to side.
They looked like solid, brilliant metal. Ringmaster had come in north of the equator, so the upper face was presented to them. Each particle was being lit from the opposite side, presenting a thin crescent, like Saturn. The sun was a brilliant point of light in the ten o'clock position, approaching Saturn.
No one spoke as the sun drew nearer to eclipse. They saw Saturn's shadow fall across the part of the ring nearest them, cutting it like a razor.
Sunset lasted fifteen seconds. The colors were deep and changed rapidly, pure reds and yellows and blue-blacks like those seen from an airliner in the stratosphere.
There was a soft chorus of sighs in the cabin. The glass depolarized and everyone gasped again as the rings grew brighter, bracketing the deep blue glow that outlined the northern hemi- sphere. Gray striations became visible on the planetary surface, illuminated by ringlight. Down there were storms as big as the Earth.
When she looked away at last, Cirocco saw the screen to her left. Gaby was still in SCIMOD. There was an image of Saturn on the screen above her head, but she didn't look up at it.
"Gaby, don't you want to come up and see this?" Cirocco saw her shake her head. She scanned the numbers marching across a tiny screen.
"And lose the best observing time of the whole trip? You've got to he out of your mind."

They first assumed a long, elliptical orbit with a low point 200 kilometers above the theoretical radius of Themis. It was a mathematical abstraction because the orbit was tilted thirty degrees from Themis, equator, which put them above the dark side. They passed the spinning toroid to emerge on the sun side. Themis lay spread out before them as a naked-eye object.
Not that there was a lot to see. Themis was nearly as black as space, even with the sun shining on it. She studied the huge mass of the wheel with the triangular solar absorption sails rimming it like sharp gear teeth, presumably soaking up sunlight and turning it into heat.
The ship moved over the interior of the great wheel. The spokes became visible, and the solar reflectors. They seemed nearly as dark as the rest of Themis, except where they mirrored some of the brighter stars.
The problem that still worried Cirocco was the lack of an entrance. There was a lot of pressure from Earth to get into the thing, and Cirocco, despite her cautious instincts, wanted to as badly as anyone else.