"Sonny Whitelaw - Ark Ship" - читать интересную книгу автора (Whitelaw Sonny)

names and a few pivotal plot sequences. This new title has been re-edited and re-worked, I know you'll
enjoy it.

Deron Douglas

Publisher, Double Dragon Publishing, Inc.
 Acknowledgments
Sabine C. Bauer for a never-ending supply of caterpillars, and Deron Douglas the most understanding
publisher in the business.
 Dedication
Cody and Amber
"Then the different flood came, as humanity reached its first billion and passed itтАФthe flood that seemed
to need no stemming. That flood, as it surged ever higher, extinguished old freedoms. What replaced
them was not new freedom, but license, an arrogant assumption that no title to a place was valid unless
written in a newly invented language by one of the most recent arrivals on the planet. For this new flood
there was no new Ark. It is already too late for a hoard of splendid creaturesтАФand for how many lesser
ones we never knew?тАФto find sanctuary."

-David Bower, Founder Friends of the Earth
Part 1: Katyl
Chapter 1

December 05, 2499

Avalon Davo sat alone in the ark ship's darkened atrium, her mind catching the cobwebs of space. She
sensed the oily darkness of the Others lurking amidst the minds of the VIPs, but there was no danger to
the ship so she ignored themтАФfor now. Asegeir's captain was not expecting her aboard until they
entered Dim5 in three hours, and she wanted to say goodbye to Earth from this unique perspective. After
all these years, being back in space was as breathtaking as her first time, almost three hundred years
before. And as always, leaving Earth was painful.

As the C20 bonded to the Viking class ark ship, Avalon had expected to be pulled aboard eighteen
months earlier, when Asegeir tested its Dim5 engines. Ryl, her daughter, was not surprised when it didn't
happen. Neither engine tests, said the Meta, nor fifth dimension jumping completed Asegeir's life-force.
Only life, including sentient life, could do that.

Avalon had felt that life-force grow as a million humans emigrated from Earth to their new home, adding
to the billions of creatures, great and small, that made Asegeir a living machine.

Then the official launch day arrived. Dignitaries and politicians sipped flat champagne in microgravity, and
made tedious speeches thanking the alien Kwilloys and Dwins. Again. And they muttered disappointment
at the C20sтАЩ absence. Again. Custom, convention, protocol, it was all necessary, Avalon knew, but not
for her. Though it wished otherwise, the NASA Gaia CorporationтАФNGCтАФhad no jurisdiction over
C20s, so she stayed in character and ignored all invitations. Her bonding to the great spheroid ark ship
was an experience of the mind and soul, too intimate to be shared.

Now, a month after launching, Asegeir was about to leave its Spacedock cradle and depart on her
maiden voyage.

Avalon looked out through the transparent hull of the ark ship. She had been granted such a fortunate life.