"Ken MacLeod - Engines of Light 3 - Engine City" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacLeod Ken)

Volkov spent the first of these hours preparing for his arrival, conscious that he would
have no time to do so in the second.
My name is Grigory Andreievich Volkov. I am two hundred and forty years old, I was
born about a hundred thousand years ago, and as many light-years away: Kharkov,
Russian Federation, Earth, in the year 2018. As a young conscript, I fought in the Ural
Caspian Oil War. I was with the first troops to enter Marseilles and to bathe their sore
feet in the waters of the Mediterranean. In 2040, I became a cosmonaut of the European
Union, and three years later made the first human landing on the surface of Venus. In
2046 I volunteered for work on the space station Marshal Titov, which in 2049 was
renamed the Bright Star. It became the first human-controlled starship. In it I traveled to
the Second Sphere. For the past two centuries I have lived on Mingulay and Croatan.
This is my first visit to Nova Terra. I hope to bring you . . .
What? The secret of immortality?
Yes. The secret of immortality. That would do.
Strictly speaking, what he hoped to bring was the secret of longevity. But he had formed
an impression of the way science was conducted on Nova Terra: secular priestcraft,
enlightened obscurantism; alchemy, philosophy, scholia. A trickle of inquiry after
immortality had exhausted hedge-magic, expanded herbalism, lengthened little but grey
beards and the index of the Pharmacopia, and remained respectable. Volkov expected to
be introduced to the Academy as a prodigy. Before the shaving-mirror, he polished his
speech and rehearsed his Trade Latin.
The suds and stubble swirled away. He slapped a stinging cologne on his cheeks, gave
himself an encouraging smile, and stepped out of the cramped washroom. The ship’s
human quarters were sparse and provisional. In an emergency, or at the owners’
convenience, they could be flooded. In normal operation, it was usual to travel in one or
other of the skiffs, which at this moment were racked on the vast curving sides of the
forward chamber like giant silver platters. The air smelled of paint and seawater; open
channels and pools divided the floor, and on the walls enormous transparent pipes
contained columns of water that rose or fell, functioning as lifts for the ship’s crew. Few
humans, and fewer saurs, were about in the chamber. Volkov strolled along a walkway.
At its end, a low rail enclosed the pool of the navigator. Eyes the size of beach balls
reflected racing bands of color from the navigator’s chromatophores and the surrounding
instrumentation. Wavelets from the rippling mantle perturbed the water. Lashing
tentacles broke the surface as they played over the controls.
Volkov was halfway up the ladder to the skiff in which he had spent most, and intended
to spend the rest, of the brief journey, when the lightspeed jump took place. The sensation
was so swift and subtle that it did not endanger his step or grasp. He was aware that it had
happened, that was all. In a moment of idle curiosity—for he’d never been within sight of
a ship’s controller at such a moment—he glanced sideways and down, to the watery
cockpit twenty-odd meters below.
The navigator floated in the middle of the pool. His body had turned an almost
translucent white. Volkov was perturbed, but could think of nothing better to do than
scramble faster up the ladder to the skiff.
The door opened and he stepped inside, rejoining his hosts. Esias de Tenebre stood
staring at the display panel, as though he could read the racing glyphs that to Volkov
meant nothing. Feet well apart, hands in his trouser pockets, his stout and muscular frame
bulked further by his heavy sweater, his shock of hair spilling from under his seaman’s
cap. Though in the rough-duty clothes that merchants traditionally wore on board ship, he
had all the stocky and cocky dignity of Holbein’s Henry—one who did not kill his wives,
all three of whom stood beside him. Lydia, the daughter of Esias and Faustina, lounged