"Robert L. Forward - Rocheworld 3 - Ocean Under the Ice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Forward Robert L)

expanse of highly reflective aluminum foil, three hundred kilometers across.
As the dim red photons from Barnard bounced off the reflective surface of the
sail, they each gave the sail a tiny push. Together, the pushes added up to a
significant light pressure force that was able to increase or decrease the
orbital speed of the lightsail around the red sun, allowing the spacecraft to
move either inward or outward through the Barnard planetary system so that its
human crew could visit the multitude of planets and moons that orbited around
the star. The crew called the spacecraft _Prometheus_ -- the bringer of light
-- for it had arrived at Barnard traveling on a beam of blue-green laser light
-- transmitted across the vast interstellar distance between Sol and Barnard
by a gigantic sun-pumped laser.
Almost lost in the vast expanse of the lightsail was the habitat that
held the exploration crew, a cylinder as big as an apartment building,
connected by tension lines to the rigging. On the hydroponics deck of the
habitat, Nels Larson -- lounging comfortably in his regeneration tank -- was
giving instructions to his hydroponics deck crew, Cinnamon Byrd, Deirdre
O'Connor, and Katrina Kauffmann. Cinnamon had just awakened from her sleep
shift and was sipping quietly from her breakfast drink-ball squeezer full of
hot pseudo-coffee. Around the circumference of her drink-ball was painted a
scene of white snow-capped Alaskan mountain peaks interspersed by valleys
filled with glowing blue-green glacier fields. Her personal robotic imp on her
shoulder, its multicolored laser lights twinkling among its multibranched
green-laser-illuminated metallic "twigs", was carefully plaiting a braid of
her dark straight hair below her left ear. When the motile finished braiding,
it curled up the two short braids around Cinnamon's ears and settled itself
down in a band across the top of her head like a set of twinkling earphones.
One tiny twig from the motile, tipped with a deep red laser, reached in behind
her ear. From there it could monitor her pulse and vital signs, and using
laser reflection spectroscopy, even measure the chemical constituents of the




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blood flowing through the capillaries just under her light reddish-brown skin.
Another twig curved down to one side of her mouth where its tip could pick up
her slightest whisper.
Deirdre's imp was in its usual place, in a six-pointed star holding up
a mass of dark curls sitting on top of her head. One of its secondary twigs
was extended down near her mouth, while another touched her ear. Deirdre's
shoulder, which was normally occupied by her pet, Foxx, was empty; but there
was a large lump in Deirdre's right breast pocket. She leaned against a
stanchion, a quiet, slender figure -- unobtrusive in a soft brown coverall and
gleaming brown pseudo-leather ankle boots. As she held her own hot coffee
close to her nose, her sleeves revealed the glint of gold, from the thin
torques which encircled her wrists. These, along with the strange flat stone
in one ear-lobe, Deirdre wore always, without thinking of them. She squeezed
the drink-ball expertly, to inhale the aroma without actually dispensing any