"Peter F. Hamilton - Void 01 - The Dreaming Void (v1.2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Peter F)

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PROLOGUE
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The starship CNE Caragana slipped down out of a night sky, its grey and scarlet hull illuminated by the
pale iridescence of the massive ion storms which beset space for lightyears in every direction. Beneath
the deep space vessel, Centurion Station formed a twinkling crescent of light on the dusty rock surface of
its never-named planet. Crew and passengers viewed the enclave of habitation with a shared sensation of
relief. Even with the hyperdrive powering them along at fifteen light-years an hour, it had taken
eighty-three days to reach Centurion Station from the Greater Commonwealth. This was about as far as
any human travelled in the mid-thirty-fourth century, certainly on a regular basis.

From his couch in the main lounge, Inigo studied the approaching alien landscape with a detached
interest. What he was seeing was exactly as the briefing files projected months ago, a monotonous plain
of ancient lava rippled with shallow gullies that led nowhere. The thin argon atmosphere stirred the sand
in short lived flurries, chasing wispy swirls from one dune to another. It was the station which claimed his
real attention.

Now they were only twenty kilometres from the ground the lights began to resolve into distinct shapes.
Inigo could easily pick out the big garden dome at the centre of the human section on the northernmost
segment of the inhabited crescent. A lambent emerald circle, playing hub to a dozen black transport tubes
that ran out to large accommodation blocks which could have been transplanted from any exotic
environment resort in the Commonwealth. From those the tubes carried on across the lava to the
cube-like observatory facilities and engineering support modules.

The pocked land to the south belonged to the alien habitats; shapes and structures of various geometries
and sizes, most of them illuminated. Next to the humans were the silver bubbles of the hominoid Golant;
followed by the enclosed grazing grounds where the Ticoth roamed amid their food herds; then came the
mammoth interconnecting tanks of the Suline, an aquatic species. The featureless Ethox tower rose up ten
kilometres past the end of the Suline’s metal-encased lakes, dark in the visible spectrum but with a
surface temperature of 180 degrees C. They were one of the species which didn’t interact with their
fellow observers on any level except for formal exchanges of data concerning the probes which orbited
the Void. Equally taciturn were the Forleene, who occupied five big domes of murky crystal that glowed
with a mild gentian light. And they were positively social compared to the Kandra, who lived in a simple
metal cube thirty metres to a side. No Kandra ship had ever landed there since the humans joined the
observation two hundred and eighty years ago; not even the exceptionally long-lived Jadradesh had seen
one, and the Raiel had invited those boulder-like swamp-dwellers to join the project seven thousand
years earlier.

A small smile flickered on Inigo’s face as he took in all the diverse zones. It was impressive to see so
many aliens physically gathered in one place, a collection which served to underline the importance of
their mission. Though as his view strayed out to the shadows thrown by the station, he had to admit that
the living were completely overshadowed by those who had passed on before them. Centurion Station’s
growth and age could be loosely measured in the same way as any humble terrestrial tree. It had
developed in rings which had been added to over the centuries as new species had joined the project.
The broad circle of land along the concave side of the crescent was studded with ruins, crumbling