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

spaceship from twenty-five million years back entombed beneath Ganymede's ice crust. In the
process of experimenting with some of the devices recovered from the vessel, Hunt and a group of
engineers at Pithead-one of the surface bases on Ganymede-had managed to activate a type of
Ganymean emergency transmitter that utilized gravity waves since the propulsive method used by
Ganymean ships precluded their receiving electromagnetic signals while under main drive; that was
what had attracted the Shapieron to Ganymede after reentering the solar system. Shannon remembered
that there had been a suggestion to use that same device to relay the news of the surprise reply
from the Giants' Star on to the Shapieron after its departure, but Hunt had grown suspicious that
the reply was a hoax and had vetoed the idea.
That had to be the "Distress Beacon" in Hunt's message. So what was the "Test-Data-File
Array" that Shannon was supposed to decode? The Ganymean beacon had been shipped to Earth along
with many other items that various institutions had wanted to experiment with firsthand, and the
researchers conducting those experiments usually made a point of sending their results back to
Jupiter via the laser link to keep interested parties there informed. The only thing that Shannon
could think of was that Hunt had somehow arranged for some information to be sent over the link
disguised as a file of ordinary-looking experimental test data purportedly relating to the beacon
and probably consisting of just a long list of numbers. Now that Shannon's attention had been
drawn to the file, the way the numbers were supposed to be read would hopefully, with close enough
scrutiny, make itself clear.
If that was it, the only people likely to know anything about unusual files of test data
coming in from Earth would be the engineers down at Pithead who had worked on the beacon after it
was brought up from beneath the ice. Shannon activated the terminal on his desk and entered a
command to access the Jupiter Five personnel records. A few minutes later he had identified the



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engineering project leader in charge of that work as a Californian called Vincent Carizan, who had
joined J5 from UNSA's Propulsion Systems and Propellants Division, where he had worked for ten
years
after obtaining a master's degree in electrical and electronic engineering at Berkeley.
Shannon's first impulse was to put a call through to Pithead, but after a minute or two of
further reflection he decided against it. If Hunt had taken such pains to avoid any hint of the
subject being interpretable from what went over the communications network, anything could be
happening. He was still pondering on what to do when the call-tone sounded from the terminal.
Shannon cleared the screen and touched a key to accept. It was his adjutant officer calling from
the command center.
"Excuse me, sir, but you are scheduled to attend the Operations Controller's briefing in 0-
327 in five minutes. Since nobody's seen you this morning, I thought maybe a reminder might be
called for."
"Oh...thanks, Bob," Shannon replied. "Look, something's come up, and I don't think I'm
going to be able to make it. Make excuses for me, would you?"
"Will do, sir."
"Oh, and Bob..." Shannon's voice rose suddenly as a thought struck him.
The adjutant looked up just as he had been about to cut the call. "Sir?"
"Get here as soon as you've done that. I've got a message that I want couriered down to
the surface."
"Couriered?" The adjutant appeared surprised and puzzled.