"Joe Haldeman - Tricentennial (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

"The whole show. I want to shut down Death Valley for twelve hours."
The Senator's mouth made a silent O. "Charlie, you've been working too
hard. Another Blackout? On purpose?"

"There won't be any Blackout. Death Valley has emergency storage for
fourteen hours."

"At half capacity." He drained his glass and walked back to the bar,
shaking his head. "First you say you want power. Then you say you want
to turn off the power." He came back with the burlap-covered bottle.
"You aren't making sense, boy."

"Not turn it off, really. Turn it around."

"Is that a riddle?"

"No, look. You know the power doesn't really come from the Death Valley
grid; it's just a way station and accumulator. Power comes from the
orbital-"
"I know all that, Charlie. I've got a Science Certificate." .

"Sure. So what we've got is a big microwave laser in orbit, that shoots
down a tight beam of power. Enough to keep North America running.
Enough-"

"That's what I mean. You can't just-"

"So we turn it around and shoot it at a power grid on the Moon. Relay
the power around to the big radio dish at Farside. Turn it into radio
waves and point it at 61 Cygni. Give 'em a blast that'll fry their
fillings."

"Doesn't sound neighborly."

"It wouldn't actually be that powerful-but it would be a hell of a lot
more powerful than any natural 21 centimeter source."

"I don't know, boy." He rubbed his eyes and grimaced. "I could maybe do
it on the sly, only tell a few people what's on. But that'd only work
for a few minutes . . . what do you need twelve hours for, anyway?"

"Well, the thing won't aim itself at the Moon automatically, the way it
does at Death Valley. Figure as much as an hour to get the thing turned
around and aimed.

"Then, we don't want to just send a blast of radio waves at them. We've
got a five-hour program, that first builds up a mutual language, then
tells them about us,

and finally asks them some questions. We want to send it twice."