"Brin, David - Earth (UC)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brin David)

PLANET
First came a supernova, dazzling the universe in brief,
spendthrift glory before ebbing into twisty, multispectral
clouds of new-forged atoms. Swirling eddies spiraled until
one of them ignited—a newborn star.
The virgin sun wore whirling skirts of dust and
electricity. Gas and rocks and bits of this and that fell
into those pleats, gathering in dim lumps . . .
planets . . .
One tiny worldlet circled at a middle distance. It
had a modest set of properties:
mass—barely enough to draw in a passing asteroid or
two;
moons—one, the remnant of a savage collision, but
big enough to tug deep tides;
spin—to set winds churning through a fuming
atmosphere;
density—a brew that mixed and separated, producing
an unpromising surface slag;
temperature—heat was the planet's only voice, a
weak one, swamped by the blaring sun. Anyway, what
can a planet tell the universe, in a reedy cry of infrared?
2 DAVIDBRIN
"This exists," it repeated, over and over. "This is a
condensed stone, radiating at about three hundred
degrees^ insignificant on the scale of stars.
"This speck, a mote, exists. "
A simple statement to an indifferent cosmos—the
signature of a rocky world, tainted by salty, smoke-blown
puddles.
But then something new stirred in those puddles. It
was a triviality—a mere discoloration here and there. But
from that moment the voice changed. Subtly, shifting in
timbre, still faint and indistinct, it nevertheless seemed
now to say,
"I ... am . . ."
An angry deity glowered at Alex. Slanting sunshine cast
C shadows across the incised cheeks and outthrust tongue
0 of Great To, Maori god of war.
R A dyspeptic idol, Alex thought, contemplating the
E carved figure. I'd feel the same if I were stuck up there,
decorating, a billionaire's office wall.
It occurred to Alex that Great Tu's wooden nose resembled
the gnomon of a sundial. Its shadow kept time, creeping
to the measured ticking of a twentieth century
grandfather clock in the corner. The silhouette stretched
slowly, amorously, toward a sparkling amethyst geode--yet
another of George Huttori's many geological treasures. Alex
made a wager with himself, that the shadow wouldn't reach
its goal before the sinking sun was cut off by the western