"Space" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baxter Stephen)
PART FOUR Bad News from the Stars A.D. 3256-3793
At the center of the Galaxy there was a cavity, blown clear by the ferocious wind from a monstrous black hole. The cavity was laced by gas and dust, particles ionized and driven to high speeds by the ferocious gravitational and magnetic forces working here, so that streamers of glowing gas crisscrossed the cavity in a fine tracery. Stars had been born here, notably a cluster of blue-hot young stars just a fraction away from the black hole itself.
And here and there rogue stars fell through the cavity — and they dragged streaming trails behind them, glowing brilliantly, like comets a hundred light-years long.
Stars like comets.
He exulted. I, Reid Malenfant, got to see this, the heart of the Galaxy itself, by God! He wished Cassiopeia were here, his companion during those endless Saddle Point jaunts to one star after another…
Again, at the thought of Cassiopeia, his anger flared.
But the Gaijin were never our enemy, not really. They learned patience among the stars. They were just trying to figure it all out, step by step, in their own way.
But it took too long for us.
It was after all a long while before we could even see the rest of them, the great wave of colonizers and miners that followed the Gaijin, heading our way along the Galaxy’s spiral arm.