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

noth-ing but ro-bots."
"You right," agreed Arielle. "I am silly to cry over computers." Then
she burst into tears again.
"What's the matter now, Arielle?" said George.
"My _Dragonfly_ was such a pretty plane, and now she is all broke!"




Page 4
 "We've got three more dragonflies for you," said George reassuringly.
"And you have all the rest of your life to fly in them."
"Here comes _Prometheus_ to pick us up," said Sam, peering out the side
of the viewport window as the lightcraft pilot Tony Roma manipulated the three
hundred kilometer diameter lightsail in the weak red photon wind of Barnard.
The lightcraft had sailed from the solar system to Barnard at twenty percent
of the speed of light, pushed by a powerful beam of laser light. Here in the
Barnard planetary system, however, the lightsail was limited to much lower
velocities by the weak light flux from the small red star.
Hanging from the center of the aluminum foil moon was their home away
from home -- a sixty-six meter high, twenty meter diameter combination hotel
and office building, complete with parking garage. At one end were five decks
for working and living, at the other end were two decks for storage and
engineering, and in the middle was the docking area for four large rocket
landers, nestled upside-down around a central shaft. There was a gap that had
previously held the lander they had used to visit Rocheworld. Three landers
still remained.
"C'mon, Red," said Thomas. "Time to fly what's left of this lander back
to its dock."
The rockets on the ascent propulsion stage brightened again as it moved
off to join up with the approaching sailcraft and unite the ten explorers with
the nine fellow crewmembers they had left behind in space.
*Look!!!* hollered Roaring*Hot*Vermillion.
^Where?^ replied Clear^White^Whistle, searching the ocean around it
with sonar pings generated by its multiton fluid body. ^I see nothing.^
*I didn't say 'see'! I said 'look'! Up in the nothing near SkyRock!*
Clear^White^Whistle quickly formed an eye out of its amorphous
jelly-like body and used the eye to look upward into the waterless void above
the ocean, where its sonar was useless for seeing things. It adjusted the
shape of the gelatine sphere into a crude lens until the heavens blossomed
with hundreds of tiny pinpoints of light. There was a new light in the sky. It
varied rapidly in brightness and moved away from the Hot-limed side of the
rocky planetoid above them toward an approaching moon-sized silver ellipse.
^It is the rocket of the humans. They are leaving SkyRock to return to
their circle in the sky that flies in the light of Hot.^
*That means the humans didn't foam out while surfing the BigBloop to
SkyRock. Say! I feel another wave coming!*
^I wonder if they'll ever come back ...^
*Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. But until they do ... LET'S GO
SURFING!*