"Robert L. Forward - Rocheworld 02 - Return to Rocheworld" - читать интересную книгу автора (Forward Robert L)

huge barn of a house that was the headquarters for both her father's medical
practice and the local radio station. When radio went digital back in the
90's, Cinnamon's grandpa had picked up a California station's library and
equipment for a song. He was forced to play only the recordings that had come
out before the CD boom, but the people in the town were happy with the local
station, despite the fact that the musical selections stayed the same and kept
falling further and further behind the times. Everywhere Cinnamon had gone in
Chenik, somewhere in earshot was a radio tuned to Gramp's station. Even as she
slept, old forgotten songs were dancing in her ears. Now songs dredged up from
her memories ran through her head ... and often out through her mouth.
The ship's computer, James, had learned to accommodate the quirk.
Cinnamon only needed to sing the first few bars of a song and James would pipe
the whole thing privately to her through her earphone-shaped imp. This would
let her complete the song and go on to another so that she wouldn't get
'hooked' on a single phrase and keep repeating it until she, or some other
crew member, went mad.
Cinnamon's mood had improved. Nels' feast proved to her that he wasn't
too upset about not having had a chance to examine the flouwen sample, and
better yet, she had seen him eyeing Carmen from across the room. It was
Cinnamon's dearest wish that Nels and Carmen would get together ... although
Carmen obstinately refused to cooperate. Carmen had fallen into the habit of
making the most blatant sexual advances, yet instantly rejecting any man that
attempted to respond to those advances. Cinnamon could almost see Nels cringe
at Carmen's outrageous innuendos. Still, maybe what ever was bothering Carmen
would keep her from throwing herself at Nels until he was ready to catch her.
Cinnamon giggled at the image she'd conjured up ... good thing they were in
near free fall!
Carmen, meanwhile, was back in her cabin. She was staring at the image
on the screen across from her bed. It was a still from one of David
Greystoke's sonovideos; an interpretive composite made from the video taken by
the exploration crew during the flouwen reproductive act. It showed four
flouwen with most of their bodies swirled together into a twisted spiral, like
one of those huge lollipops that her uncle used to buy for her, even though
she never liked them very much. The colors of the adult flouwen faded out
towards the center, leaving a clear, jelly-like mass. In the very middle was a
patch of bright blue; the color of the newly created being.
Carmen knew that the still frame was inaccurate. She had seen the
original video dozens of times, and the new being did not develop color until
the adults had separated from the colorless mass created by their mating. But
she liked David's composition; not just for the color and symmetry, but more
for what it represented. Life. New life from old. Reproduction. Something
she'd never be able to accomplish. Burying her head in her pillow, Carmen
cried.
Today was Carmen's birthday, although she had told no one on board
about it. She was 72, well, 42 really. You couldn't count the time they had
spent under the influence of No-Die. The drug had slowed the rate of aging of
the crew by a factor of four, so they only aged ten years during the forty
years they had spent coasting at twenty percent of the speed of light from Sol
to Barnard. Unfortunately, the drug also lowered their Iqs by an equivalent
amount, turning highly intelligent adults into large bodied preschoolers. All