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

something that may never come our way again.”
Liz shook her head. “I can’t endorse that approach. What if we aren’t the
only ones with some kind of problem? Yes, there is some margin, but not enough to
cover things if all four impactors make changes as big as we are contemplating here.
We can’t just grab all the margin of error for ourselves. We have to put that
impactor on exactly the prescribed profile if we humanly can.”
 After the lightspeed delay, a project engineer shook his head. “It would be
better to destroy the impactor and start over again than to be slightly off. A great
many things could happen with an asymmetric impact, some of them very dangerous
indeed, and to people other than ourselves.”
Cyan Mutori nodded gravely.
David’s heart sank. They just couldn’t see how important it was! Of course
not, he thought. They were mostly physical scientists and engineers. They had
different values. Against all logic, he searched Cyan’s face for a hopeful sign, but
her face, of course, gave nothing away.
There were more questions and answers, but in reality everyone was well
informed. This was not a question of facts, but one of value and perspective. His, he
realized, were not theirs.
One of the council members made a motion to adjourn without acting on the
diversion proposal. They voted silently.
Finally, Cyan looked at him. “The consensus of the Council is to continue
with the original mission plan. We’ll put all available resources into getting as large a
physical sample of pre-collision Martin as we can, right up to the last minute. I am
sorry, David, but it is the best we can do for you. I know human team members will
want to stay until the last minute, so we need to be fairly firm about getting them off.
Please inform everyone that all human team members should plan to be off of Martin
within twenty-four hours of impact, for safety.”
David nodded dumbly and sighed. “I understand. Thank you for considering
this. Since there is so little time, I should get back to work.”
****
Liz went jogging. The track circled the small habitat—if you ran spinward you
were heavier. She ran spinward—punishing her body helped with the frustration.
They had enough power to divert the planetoid now, but no way to couple that
power efficiently to the planetoid. It would require engineering a new reflector to
couple the beam’s momentum to the planetoid. But if they waited until they could get
one installed, it would take so much power that the project would be compromised.
The dilemma seemed to have no solution.
David, of course, would never understand that. Liz continued going in circles,
mentally and physically. Finally exhausted, she stopped at the locker room,
showered, dressed, and headed back to David’s quarters.
David wasn’t there.
****
David stowed his Martin suit and a big duffel bag behind a bulkhead, then
geckroed his feet by the airlock as the last shuttle from Martin’s surface docked. His
course was settled, but he wanted to make sure no one else would be harmed. He
waved to them as they came out of the access tube and pulled themselves down the
corridor, accompanied by robots pulling bags of samples and gear. They all smelled
of dust from the surface.
“Is everyone off the planet now?” David asked the last one off, a stocky man
named Ned Oh.