"James P. Hogan - Craddle of Saturn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

the process could go into solar-capture orbits.

In the main, the reaction of the scientific orthodoxy was to dismiss the suggestion as too much at
odds with established notions and find arguments to show why it couldn't happen. Then, after the
onset of sudden irregularities in Jupiter's rotation followed by several weeks of progressive
deformation in shape beneath the gas envelope, it did.

Rivaling the Earth itself in size, white-hot from the energy that had attended its birth, and
blazing a fiery tail tens of millions of miles long, Athena had been plunging sunward for ten
months, all the time gaining in speed and brightness. Spectral analysis showed it to be composed
of a mix of core and crustal materials trailing an envelope of ionized Jovian atmospheric gases.
Currently crossing the Earth's orbit sixty million miles ahead of the Earth, it was visible to the
naked eye across a quarter of the sky before dawn and after sundown. During the next month it
would accelerate into a tight turn around the Sun, bringing it to within a quarter of a million
miles at perihelion, covering more than a million miles in an hour and practically reversing
direction to pass little more than fifteen million miles ahead of the approaching Earth on its way
back to the outer Solar System. It was predicted that the spectacle would dim into insignificance
any comet ever before seen in history.



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3
Space Dock was built in the form of a short, fat dumbbell passing radially through a cylindrical
hub. Cramped and dirty, noisy and oily, it normally accommodated between twenty and thirty people.
It had been built several years previously as a joint venture by a consortium of private
interests, of which Amspace was one of the principals, to provide an orbiting test base for space
vehicles and technologies at a time when depending on government to provide facilities had been
too fraught with delay and political uncertainties to be reliable.

A stubby-winged surface lifter lay docked at the far end of the hub when Joe attached the NIFTV at
one of Space Dock's ports. A minishuttle bearing the Amspace logo was standing a short distance
off. It was forty minutes since the NIFTV parted company from the Air Force spaceplane, by which
time it had pulled fully a hundred miles ahead despite having traced its circular pattern
continuously. The three crew were jubilant as they hauled themselves through the lock into the
cluttered surroundings of pipes and machinery to the welcoming shouts and back-slaps of their
waiting colleagues. Keene, coming first, waved and grinned in acknowledgment. Behind him came
Ricardo, his mouth frozen wide, setting his teeth off white against his Mediterranean-olive skin,
with Joe making a double thumbs-up sign as he floated out last. They were making the best of the
enthusiasm around them while they had the chance. It was not exactly representative of the
reaction they expected from the world in general, which for the most part would no doubt be
shocked rather than appreciative. But that, after all, had been the whole idea.

Warren Fassner, in track pants and a red T-shirt, was waiting in the suiting chamber past the
lock, where a technician began helping Keene out of his flight garb. Fassner had red hair with a
matching, ragged mustache, and a large frame with an ample fleshy covering that gave the