"Joe Haldeman - Camouflage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

Camouflage


Joe Haldeman
An Ace Book
Published by The Berkley Publishing Group
A division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
CAMOUFLAGE
Copyright © 2004 by Joe Haldeman.
Text design by Tiffany Estreicher.
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any
other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by
law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate
in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of
the author's rights is appreciated. ACE and the "A" design are
trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First edition: August 2004
ISBN: 0-441-01161-6
This title has been registered with the Library of Congress.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
10 9876 54321
 For Ralph Vicinanza, faithful navigator



The author gratefully acknowledges the help of Chris
Nelson, our guide through the alien world of Samoa, and
Cordelia Willis, for her knowledge of forensic technology
and DNA matters.
 prologue

The monster came from a swarm of stars that humans call
Messier 22, a globular cluster ten thousand light-years distant. A
million stars with ten million planets—all but one of them devoid
of significant life.
It's not a part of space where life could flourish. All of those
planets are in unstable orbits, the stars swinging so close to one
another that they steal planets, or pass them around, or eat them.
This makes for ferocious geological and climatic changes; most
of the planets are sterile billiard balls or massive Jovian gasbags.
But on the one world where life has managed a toehold, that life is