"Barry N. Malzberg - A Galaxy Called Rome" - читать интересную книгу автора (Malzberg Barry N)

impenetrable until the day of one's death.
So I decided to try the novelette, at least as this series of
notes, although with some trepidation, but trepidation did not
unsettle me, nor did I grieve, for my life is merely a set of notes
for a life, and Ridgefield Park merely a rough working model of

7
 A Galaxy Called Rome by Barry N. Malzberg



Trenton, in which, nevertheless, several thousand people live
who cannot discern their right hands from their left, and also
much cattle.

V


It is 3895. The spacecraft Skipstone, on an exploratory flight
through the major and minor galaxies surrounding the Milky
Way, falls into the black galaxy of a neutron star and is lost
forever.
The captain of this ship, the only living consciousness of it, is
its commander, Lena Thomas. True, the hold of the ship carries
five hundred and fifteen of the dead sealed in gelatinous fix who
will absorb unshielded gamma rays. True, these rays will at
some time in the future hasten their reconstitution. True, again,
that another part of the hold contains the prosthesis of seven

8
 A Galaxy Called Rome by Barry N. Malzberg



skilled engineers, male and female, who could be switched on at
only slight inconvenience and would provide Lena not only with
answers to any technical problems which would arise but with
companionship to while away the long and grave hours of the
Skipstone's flight.
Lena, however, does not use the prosthesis, nor does she feel
the necessity to. She is highly skilled and competent, at least in
relation to the routine tasks of this testing flight, and she feels
that to call for outside help would only be an admission of
weakness, would be reported back to the Bureau and lessen her
potential for promotion. (She is right; the Bureau has monitored
every cubicle of this ship, both visually and biologically; she can
see or do nothing which does not trace to a printout; they would
not think well of her if she was dependent upon outside
assistance.) Toward the embalmed she feels somewhat more.