"Sean McMullen - A Greater Vision" - читать интересную книгу автора (McMullen Sean)

monitor frame and studied it carefully.
 "They've altered course twenty four degrees, they're steering straight for the closest islands. How
could he have known?"
"From the flight of the birds," replied Wirana, weary of his visits by now.
"How would you know? You use computers and satellites to navigate."
"But I studied the history of navigation for this assignment. If I was navigating for Colombo's fleet I'd
take the present course."
"He's good," said Nunga grudgingly. "If anyone can do it, Columbus can."
Wirana folded her arms and stared into the glowing screens, each with a different representation of the
little ships and their status. She sensed a softening in Nunga, and almost without thinking she tried to build
on it.
"Exploration is a precarious business," she said. "I feel sorry for all those men, so far into the unknown
on those frail, tiny ships while we're down here, eating marinated crocodile steaks and drinking
macadamia mash brandy."
Nunga scowled, and turned from the screen to stare her down.
"We have had our trials too. Narabinda lost half of his expedition in the cold, grey dust of the Moon
while the Romans were having orgies and chariot races. My grandfather died when the tenth Mars probe
crashed into the red deserts while Columbus was at his mother's breast. When the Wondibingi arrives at
Jupiter you will be in danger too, from sulphur volcanoes and showers of radioactive particles. There's no
reason to sympathise with the men on those ships. They may be very brave-- "
"Death from the dangers of the frontier is honourable. Being smothered by the obscene lie that this ship
is about to commit is something else. We're prostituting sixty thousand years of medical and technical
progress."
Nunga scuffed the sand overlay of the decking, unsure of whether to persuade or attack.
"It simply has to be this way. What you refer to as an obscene lie is the only chance for our world. If
we just make Colombo's fleet vanish, others will try. They have to be convinced that there is nothing out
here. Otherwise they will race out of control before we can educate them to develop in harmony with the
Land."
"But we're enslaving the soul of their people."
"If they are given a huge, rich frontier just now they could well overtake us within five hundred years."
"Impossible!"
"No, eminently possible. Consider their muskets, falconets and lombards. Even though we had
invented black powder rockets before the last ice age, these people invented guns before us. What
weapon might they develop with nuclear power?"
"Why none, it's not practical. The smallest possible nuclear bomb would wipe out a city. How could
you have the capitulation welcome and the reconciliation festival after a battle if all your enemies are
dead?"
"They don't have those traditions, they never have. They have no honour, no ethics, they'd stoop to
tactics that we would never dream of using."
She did not agree, and she did not reply. The conversation was annoying her, and she wanted Nunga
to leave.
"They will take about four days to reach land," she said. "What else do you want to know?"
"Nothing. That means we must strike now, while the ocean is still deep enough to conceal us."
"There's a good depth almost to the islands."
"Act now! They're nine-tenths of the way across, it's obvious that they will reach the islands. If they
had sailed in a more southerly direction they would have reached land already. They'll do it, there's no
doubt at all."
"I want to know that he could succeed, even if he does not. Until I know that I'll not recommend
dilation to begin."
Nunga raised his eyes to the ribs of the ceiling. "Of all the irrational, stupid-- I'm going to report this to