"Jack Williamson - Afterlife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williamson Jack)

My mother dried her tears and kissed me. My father made us kneel and pray together. I
hugged them both, and the inspector took me with him to board the departing mother ship.

ALL THAT WAS TWO million years ago and two million light-years behind us. That long
jump dropped us into the gravity well of a giant black hole, but we were able to coast
around it in free fall, with no harm at all. The third skip brought us into low orbit around our
new planet, a kind world that had no native life and needed no terraforming. My low-tech
skills did help us stay alive. The microbots have learned them, and we are well established
now.

I have recalled this story for our children and their microbots to remember. I was at first
uneasy about letting the microbots into my body. For a long time I hardly felt them, but
they're beginning now to give me a new zest for life, a new happiness with all my new
friends, an endless delight in the wonders of our new world.

Our new sky blazes with more stars than I ever imagined, all in strange constellations, but
on a clear night we can make out our home galaxy, a faint fleck of brightness low in the
south. Remembering my parents, who lived so far away and long ago, I wish they could
have known the true afterlife we've discovered here.