"Jack McKinney - Robotech 17 - Rubicon" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinney Jack)

Robotech Sentinels: Rubicon
Book 17 of the Robotech Series
Copyright 1988 by Jack McKinney


CHAPTER ONE
Don't talk to me of Science! The only reference work I consult is the
Encyclopedia of Ignorance. All Science has done is force us to narrow our
definitions, categorize our thinking. It offers us false security at the
expense of spontaneity. I have no use for it. I create my world and change its
rules and guidelines as I see fit. I am the only god this dimension has ever
known; the only one it will ever know!
T. R. Edwards, as quoted in Constance Wildman's When Evil Had It's Day: A
Biography of T. R. Edwards

"At least I won't be pirating it this time," Jonathan Wolff told Lang as the
retrofitted SDF-7-class cruiser nosed into view. The venom in his voice was
palpable, but the scientist either misunderstood or refused to acknowledge it.
"Engineering and astrogation have already been briefed on our
modifications to the Reflex drives and spacefold generators. Improvements, I
should say," Lang added, turning around to face Wolff.
Wolff tried to take a reading of the man's transformed eyes, but staring
into them only made him think of black holes, unfathomable singularities. He
let his gaze linger on the starship instead, his ticket home, whatever that
meant.
"We've moved away from reliance on the Ur-Flower peat toward a more
conventional dialogue between the monopole ore and the Protoculture itself.
Your ship has a bit of the SDF-3 in her, Colonel."
Wolff smirked. "Then maybe it'll find a way back to Earth on its own,
Lang. A milk run."
The scientist cocked his head to one side, offering an appraising look.
"It wouldn't be the oddest thing, commander."
Major Carpenter, whose ship had left Fantomaspace more than six months
ago, had not been heard from. Lang's Robotechs were attributing this to
malfunctions in the ship's deep-space transceivers-a wedding of Tiresian and
Karbarran systemry-but privately Lang had confessed to misgivings about the
very nature of the ship's drives. Not so with this ship, Wolff had been
assured. This was the one the R&D people were puffed up about. This was the
one that would give Wolff the edge; spirit him through space-time in the
blinking of an eye, overtaking en route the Earth-bound spade fortresses of
the Robotech Masters.
Wolff continued to regard the ship from the SDF-3's observation blister
without much thought to Lang's reassurances, or what may or may not lay at
mission's end. To him the ship, this sleek and substantially scaled-down
version of the Super Dimensional Fortress, was simply a way out. There had
been flashes of renewed faith these past few weeks, moments when he saw
himself as reborn-on Haydon IV, for instance, or at seeing the look on T. R.
Edwards's face when his treachery was revealed to the council-but all that had
been emptied from him on the bridge of the Valivarre. Minmei's words still
rang in his ears like a curse; her marriage to Edwards, that sick and sinister