"Forward,.Dr.Robert.L.-.Ocean.Under.the.Ice.Book.3.of.the.Rocheworld.Series" - читать интересную книгу автора (Forward Robert L)
"Boring as hell, Red," Sam muttered to Elizabeth as the tall woman came to stand beside him while he finished examining the latest set of images. Her intensely-red hair contrasted nicely with her well-fitting bright green jumpsuit. "Looking for signs of life on Zapotec is like trying to find placer gold in the Empty Quarter of Arabia."
"Or looking for nickel-iron nodules in a carbonaceous chondrite," replied the former asteroid prospector as she took over control of the console. One of her nickel-iron finds -- an asteroid containing one hundred million tons of nearly pure metal -- had made her a multi-billionaire, but she had given it all up to come on this mission to the stars. All she had left of her fortune was a single gold coin, kept in her shirt pocket as a souvenir.
Jinjur whispered to her imp. "Hook George and me up with Sam and Red, and bring up the planetary science console screen." James alerted Sam and Red of the linkup, and soon the four were in conversation.
"Now, Sam," asked Jinjur. "Which exploration robots did we send to Zapotec and what have they reported so far?" Sam bent his lanky form in its trim-fitting denim over the science console, his fingers played over the touch-screen to bring up the data.
"During our fly-through tour of the Gargantua system before we decided to visit Rocheworld, we dropped off four exploration robots at Zapotec," reported Sam. "Seeing as how the place is a lot like Mars -- even has a little atmosphere -- we chose a couple different robotic vehicles. One was the orbiter _Carl_; it has cameras for global imagery, both high and low resolution. It's also got a laser altimeter for topography profiles, a gravity gradiometer for subsurface mass distribution, and a whole bunch of spectrometers -- visible, infrared, gamma ray, microwave, ultraviolet -- specially directed at finding water and life-associated chemicals like free oxygen. _Carl_ also fetched along a couple aeroshells which it turned loose after looking the place over. One had _Wilbur_ in it, a robot plane modeled after the ones we used on Mars, with great big wings for the thin air. The other aeroshell had _Pushmi-Pullyu_ aboard -- that's a pair of crawlers fastened together with a cable on reels, so they can haul each other up and down steep parts, if need be." Sam's voice changed slightly as he shifted from reporting to commanding.
"James?" said Sam. "How about giving Jinjur a summary report of what the exploration robots have found so far?"
Swiftly James produced for Jinjur the desired report. They were close enough to Zapotec that the communications time delay was negligible, so James let the vehicles themselves give the summary.
"Orbiter _Carl_ here," came a sibilant tenor voice. On their console screens appeared the image of a rocky, barren planet. "After a brief initial survey of Zapotec from a near equatorial orbit, I dropped the aeroshells containing _Wilbur_ and _Pushmi-Pullyu_ near the large equatorial rift valley." The picture enlarged and continued to rotate, taking them on a simulated flyover of the chasm which not only exceeded in length and depth the Grand Canyon, but the Valles Marineris. "I then switched to a polar orbit with an altitude picked so that successive ground-tracks would ultimately provide complete coverage of the planet under various lighting conditions." The image changed to that of one of the polar regions. It showed a dirty ice cap pocked through around the edges with rounded mounds of lava with broad calderas in their centers.
"Special attention was paid to obtaining high resolution images of the volcanic chain ringing the south pole ice cap. During my nearly two years of observation, a number of the volcanoes have showed activity." The picture of the polar region switched from a high-resolution cleaned-up view to an obviously stop-motion view -- where the beginning of an eruption on one of volcanoes would be caught in one orbital passover by _Carl_, and successive orbits would track the resulting dust and ash cloud as it moved down wind.
"Richard's been having fun analyzing those," remarked Sam over their imp links. "The ashes and gas released have a real effect on the climate, especially when the ashes cover some of the ice."
"Preliminary evaluation of the imagery and sensor data produced no indications of life nor anything else of significant interest," _Carl_ finally concluded.
"This is _Wilbur_," came a deep, matter-of-fact voice. "As a high-altitude robotic plane with VTOL landing capacity, my task was to supply ground-truth data for the images and sensor data taken from orbit, and to collect a few samples of anything important that could not be reached by the crawlers. The atmosphere of Zapotec is thin, but I had no problem flying or hovering in it. I first surveyed the floor of the rift valley and identified important points along the rift wall for the crawlers to investigate in more detail." The screens in front of Jinjur and Sam showed close-up images of a cliff wall, which contained layer after layer of what looked like sandstone interspersed with black ash. "After finishing the rift valley, I started on a programmed spot survey of the planet." The image switched to a close-up of a volcanic caldera shooting up red-hot ashes, lighting flashing continuously from the glowing ash cloud to points on the rim of the crater. "I am now in my second tour, with landing spots chosen to be intermediate between those of the first survey. Preliminary evaluation of the surface samples and the airborne imagery produced no indications of life nor anything else of significant interest," _Wilbur_ concluded.
"This is _Pushmi_ reporting," came a squeaky voice. "I and _Pullyu_ landed on the plains outside the rift valley and we began exploring at the locations indicated to us by _Wilbur_. I lowered _Pullyu_ down the walls while it took selected samples of the various exposed layers." Close-up pictures of the layered side of a cliff showed up on their screen. "The light-colored layers are sandstone from ancient dune field build-ups, alternating with thin layers of ash, and occasional thick layers of volcanic lava. There are no indications that Zapotec had any significant surface water at any time in its history. After sampling all around the perimeter of the rift valley, we traveled south to explore and sample the polar volcano field." There were pictures from _Pushmi_, of _Pullyu_ being lowered into a caldera, taking samples off the steep slope as it descended. In the image, the humans could see a large bubble forming in the lake of lava far below. The bubble burst, sending streamers of glowing lava up along the sides of the caldera, one of which engulfed _Pullyu_. As the lava fell back, it left only the melted tip of the high-strength polymer cable behind.
"_Pullyu_ was lost in crater 79 south 120 east," reported _Pushmi_. No samples were lost except those of that particular volcano, since we divided up samples after every survey mission so that each of us had a duplicate set. I have now limited my surveys to safe regions. Within one year my sample hold will be full and I will need to transfer the samples to the return stage waiting back at the aeroshell. My preliminary evaluation of the samples has produced no indications of life nor anything else of significant interest," _Pushmi_ concluded.
There was a brief silence.
"Hunh," said Jinjur. "No indications of life nor anything else of significant interest -- cubed."
"That about sums it up," agreed George. "Doesn't sound like a really exciting place to visit in person, does it?"
"Nope," agreed Jinjur. "James. Tell the Zapotec exploration team to keep up the good work. We'll be back to collect their samples later. Now -- how about the next moon in, Zouave?"
Just then Arielle Trudeau came sailing down the shaft to take over the navigation console from Tony Roma. She had obviously stopped by the galley on the way for some provisions to last her between breakfast and lunch.
Tony stood and stretched to his full five feet six. "After all the fun of Rocheworld, that report on Zapotec was something of a let-down. Well, Arielle, Jinjur says we aren't going to Zapotec, so we'll just maintain our present course to the inner moons. I don't think you'll need to do anything for a while except monitor James."
Arielle didn't reply, because her mouth was full, but she slid willingly into the seat for the navigation control console. Her imp, sparkling with color, moved over her ears to form headphones, while one long tendril moved swiftly and delicately out to remove an errant crumb from her cheek and tuck it neatly between her lips. The slender hands firmly secured the food and drink she carried into convenient receptacles on either side of the console screen, and then lay relaxed in her lap. However, the huge brown eyes were intent and watchful on the screens. Since she had little to do except monitor James -- who almost never made a mistake -- she switched most of her screen to the planetary science images and arranged for her imp to listen in on the discussion about Zouave.
"Well, now. Zouave's all covered with smog, kind'a like Titan," explained Sam. "Plenty of air, we knew that -- three atmospheres full. And radar said there was thick ice over the rocky core, but we knew it was too warm for liquid nitrogen rain like Titan's. There might have been snowdrifts on top of the ice, or maybe lakes of methane, or ethane, or some stuff that might wreck a crawler's sensors. So we sent down _Punch_ and _Poke_, a couple penetrator probes to get right down to bedrock and find out chemical composition, temperatures, and seismic data. They also took along a couple high-pressure balloons, _Tweedledee_ and _Tweedledum_. They've been hangin' around, drifting between surface and clouds, blown from one place to the other by winds and collecting samples as they go."
"What have they found so far?" asked Jinjur.
"_Punch_ and _Poke_ aren't really intelligent enough to carry on a conversation," interjected James. "But the balloons are. I'll let them tell you themselves."
"Snow!" came a slightly lower computer voice with a harsher tone.
"More ice than snow!"
"More snow than ice!"
There was a spluttering from the space science console. The normally reserved Reiki was trying to keep from laughing, and was not succeeding. "I tried to program a little personality into the voice personas, to match their names. Perhaps I overdid it." The piercing voice dropped slightly in tone as the semi-intelligent central computer of the balloon became more controlled. "This is balloon explorer _Tweedledee_ assigned to obtain surface samples of the northern hemisphere of Zouave. The amount of ice cover I have surveyed is 51.5 percent compared to snow cover of 47.3 percent. Only 1.2 percent of the surface area is bare rock, most of it sheer cliff faces in the mountainous regions of the far north. My sample return rocket will be full in 1.3 years."
"This is balloon explorer _Tweedledum_. It is obvious that _Tweedledee_ has been exploring the wrong hemisphere to obtain the correct ice to snow ratio. The amount of ice cover I have surveyed is 46.3 percent compared to snow cover of 52.9 percent. Only 0.8 percent of the surface area is bare rock, most of it in the calderas of volcanoes just south of the equator. My sample return rocket will be full in 1.2 years."
"Doesn't sound very promising, nothing but a frozen landscape," said George.
"Any signs of life?" asked Jinjur. There was a slight time lag before the reply.
"None," came the simultaneous joint answer from the two balloons on the opposite hemispheres of the planet.
"Why are you echoing me?"
"Echoing you? You were echoing me!"
"I said 'None' first!"
"No, I did!"
"I did!"
Jinjur made a motion near her imp like turning off a volume control knob and James stopped transmitting. "Tell them to keep up the good work and we'll be back in a year or two to pick up their samples."
"Well," said George. "As we expected, that leaves Zuni and Zulu. And they are both worth spending landers on, since they both have life-forms which we'll want to examine firsthand. You can't really learn much about a living organism by examining a few samples that were punched out of it by a robotic corer."
"Well," mused Jinjur. "Since our exploration robots on Zulu have come across life-forms that use artifacts and seem to be intelligent, then it's obvious that we should go there first."
A soft, but insistent voice spoke out from across the room. It was Reiki, who instead of using her imp to talk through James to Jinjur, was speaking directly at her. "If I may make a suggestion..."
When Jinjur heard that phrase from Reiki, she knew that whatever Reiki had to say might be important and she should listen to it.
"Certainly, Reiki," said Jinjur. "Suggest on..."
"Because of our involvement with the flouwen and the star-fish creatures on Rocheworld..." she started. (Reiki had always disliked the name 'gummies' and refused to use it.) "...and the minutes-long communications time delay between Rocheworld and Zulu, we have not had much opportunity to develop a working dialogue with the dominant life-forms on Zulu. Although it might seem obvious that we should go there first, it _may_ be better to visit the other moon first. While the exploration crew on the ground are collecting samples of the vegetation and the animals on Zuni, the crew on _Prometheus_ could be interacting with the Zulu aliens through the crawlers and improving James's translation programs so that our ultimate visit there would be much more profitable."
"She has a point, there," said George. "We'll have to think carefully about which moon should be visited first."
"To really determine whether our translation programs are adequate for a visit, we ought to try them out in real time," said Jinjur. "And that means getting close enough to Zulu that the communications time-lag is negligible. James? Get me Arielle..."
"I listening," replied Arielle.
"What course did Tony leave us on?"
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