"James P. Hogan - Giants 3 - Giant's Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

alien civilization anything could be possible, but a hoax had seemed the most likely explanation
for the fourteen-hour turn-around time. If Caldwell were right, it made so much nonsense of that
conviction.
"You're certain they're genuine?" he asked dubiously when he had recovered from the
initial shock. "It couldn't all be a sick joke by a freak somewhere?"
CaIdwell shook his head. "We have enough data now to pinpoint the source
interferometrically. It's way out past Pluto, and UNSA does not have anything anywhere near it.
Besides, we've checked every bit of traffic through all our hardware, and it's clean. The signals
are genuine."
Hunt raised his eyebrows and exhaled a long breath. Okay, so he'd been wrong on that one.


file:///F|/rah/James%20P.%20Hogan/Hogan,%20James%20P%20-%20Giant's%20Star.txt (7 of 137) [2/4/03 10:56:12 PM]
 file:///F|/rah/James%20P.%20Hogan/Hogan,%20James%20P%20-%20Giant's%20Star.txt

He shifted his gaze from Caldwell to the notes and papers lying along the middle of the table in
front of him, and frowned as another thought occurred to him. Like the original message from
Farside, the reply from the Giants' Star had been composed in the ancient Ganymean language and
communications codes from the time of the Shapieron. After the ship's departure, the reply had
been translated by Don Maddson, head of the Linguistics section lower down in the building, who
had made a study of Ganymean during the aliens' stay. That had required considerable effort, short
though the reply had been, and Hunt knew of no one else anywhere who could have handled the more
recent signals that Caldwell was talking about. As a rule Hunt didn't have much time for protocol
and formality, but if Maddson was in on this, he sure-as-hell should have known about it too. "So
who did the translating?" he asked suspiciously. "Linguistics?"
"There wasn't any need," Lyn said simply. "The signals are coming through in standard
datacomm codes. They're in English."
Hunt slumped back in his chair and just stared. Ironically that said definitely that it
was no hoax; who in their right mind would forge messages from aliens in English? And then it came
to him. "Of course!" he exclaimed. "They must have intercepted the S/iapieron somehow. Well,
that's good to -- " He broke off in surprise as he saw Caidwell shaking his head.
"From the content of the dialogue over the last few weeks, we're pretty certain that's not
the case," Caldwell said. He looked
at Hunt gravely. "So if they haven't talked to the Ganymeans who were here, and they know
our communications codes and our language, what does that say to you?"
Hunt looked around and saw that the others were watching him expectantly. So he thought
about it. And after a few seconds his eyes widened slowly, and his mouth fell open in undisguised
disbelief. "Je-sus!" he breathed softly.
"That's right," Norman Pacey said. "This whole planet must be under some kind of
surveillance...and has been for a long time." For the moment Hunt was too flabbergasted to offer
any reply. Little wonder the whole business had been hushed up.
"That supposition was backed up by the first of the new signals that came in at Bruno,"
Caidwell resumed. "It said in no uncertain terms that nothing whatsoever relating to the contact
was to be communicated via lasers, comsats, datalinks, or any kind of electronic media. The
scientists up at Bruno who received the message went along with that directive, and told me about
it by sending a courier down from Luna. I passed the word up through Navcomms to UNSA Corporate in
the same way and told the Bruno guys to carry on handling things locally until somebody got back
to them."
"What it means is that at least part of the surveillance is in the form of tapping into
our communications network," Pacey said. "And whoever is sending the signals, and whoever is