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

temperament, and the notion of settling there unthinkable.
These visits to Earth did, however, have one practical outcome in addition to satisfying
the Ganymeans' scientific curiosity. In the course of their studies of the forms of animal life
they discovered, they identified a totally new, gene-based mechanism for absorbing C02, which gave
terrestrial fauna a far higher and more adaptable inherent tolerance. It suggested an alternative
approach to solving the problem on Minerva. The Ganymeans imported large numbers of terrestrial
animal species back to their own planet to conduct genetic experiments aimed at transplanting the
functional terrestrial coding groups into their own species, thereafter to be inbred automatically
into their descendants. Some well-preserved specimens of these early terrestrial animals had been
recovered from the wrecked ship on Ganymede, and Danchekker had brought many of them back to
Westwood for detailed studies.
The experiments were not successful, and soon afterward the Ganymeans disappeared. The
terrestrial species left on Minerva rapidly wiped out the virtually defenseless native forms,
adapted and radiated to flourish across the planet, and continued to evolve...
Almost twenty-five million years later-around fifty thousand years before the current
period on Earth-an intelligent, fully
human form had established itself on Minerva. This race was named the "Lunarians" after
the first traces of their existence came to light in the course of lunar explorations being
conducted in 2028, which was when Hunt had first gotten involved and moved from England to join
UNSA. The Lunarians were a violent and warlike race who developed advanced technology rapidly and
eventually polarized into two superpowers, Cerios and Lambia, which clashed in a final,
cataclysmic war fought across the entire surface of Minerva and beyond. In the violence of this


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conifict Minerva had been destroyed, Pluto and the Asteroids born, and Luna orphaned.
A few survivors were left stranded on the lunar surface at the end of these events.
Somehow, when at last the Moon stabilized in orbit around Earth after being captured, some of
these survivors succeeded in reaching the only haven left for them in the entire solar system-the
surface of Earth itself. For millennia they clung precariously to the edge of extinction,
reverting to barbarism for a period and in the process losing the thread that traced their
origins. But in time they grew strong and spread far and wide. They supplanted the Neanderthals,
who were descended from the primates that had continued to evolve undisturbed on Earth, and
eventually came to dominate the entire planet in the form of Modern Man. Only much later, when at
last they rediscovered the sciences and ventured back into space, did they find the evidence to
reconstruct the story of their origins.

They found Danchekker attired in a stained white lab smock, measuring and examining parts
taken from a large, brown, furry carcass lying on the dissection table. It was powerfully muscled,
and its fearsome, well-developed carnivore's teeth were exposed where the lower jaw of the snout
had been removed. Danchekker informed them that it was an intriguing example of a relative to
Daphoenodon of the Lower Miocene. Despite its evidently distinct digitigrade mode of locomotion,
moderately long legs, and heavy tail, its three upper molars distinguished it as an ancestor of
Amphicyon and through it of all modern bears-unlike Cynodesmus, of which Danchekker also had a
specimen, whose upper dentition of two molars put it between Cynodictis and contemporary Canidae.
Hunt took his word for it.
Hunt had practically insisted to Caldwell that if they succeeded
in arranging a landing for a ship from Thurien, Danchekker would have to be included in