"C. Sanford Lowe & G. David Nordley - The Small Pond" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lowe C Sanford)

THE SMALL POND
by C. Sanford Lowe and G. David Nordley




Being a big fish may be attractive, but can have correspondingly big
disadvantages...

****

Chapter 1
In the Solar System’s Kuiper Belt,
9 May 2250
“Return? Return!? But we just got here! Nobody’s even been down to the
surface yet!”
The surface floated in front of Liz Avonford, forbidding, mysterious. She put
a hand on the Marsden’s observation window as if to touch the unknown planetoid
below them. It drew her to it with a force far greater than its negligible gravity.
Salim shook his head firmly. “Orders from Dr. DeRoot. We have to go back.
Besides, we didn’t tell them we were going to land. I think Vitus DeRoot would
rather someone else be the first on the surface. This is the biggest thing found in the
Solar System in the last century—it’s over 300 kilometers across! It’s historically
important. The institute would want to be involved in the landfall decision. We’ve
got a big fish here, and we aren’t expected to be catching big fish. We should get
permission.”
“Nuts!” she said. At 3007 AU’s from Sol, it was her call. “I’m going down
for a couple of hours at least. We’re too far out to be calling back to headquarters.
It would take a month to get permission.”
“Thirty-four days, sixteen hours,” the Marsden added, helpfully. “25 August
2250.”
“Look, they didn’t say so in so many words,” Salim said, “but...”
“Nuts to the politics! I found it. And I’m going to be the first one down.”
Silence. She was the expedition commander and the legal authority in place,
unless Salim or someone relieved her. And they would not do so over this; no one
had expressly ordered her not to make landfall.
Liz grabbed the doorjamb and projected herself across the deck to the nearest
excursion vehicle. She checked herself smartly with a hand slap on the cockpit rim,
pivoting her legs onto the seat. A quick visual showed the standard equipment was
all present, including a helmet and coveralls in the wire mesh locker behind the
pilot’s station.
“Activate and close up,” she ordered the module.
Two hours later, she was on the planetoid’s surface, leaving the first human
footprints on its regolith of coal-black cosmic dust.
She crouched slowly to keep her feet on the ground and set an analyzer on the
surface.
“How old?” she queried.
The display inside her helmet projected 7.219 gigayears.
“Salim, this thing is older than the Solar System! Over seven billion years! It
didn’t come from here!”