"Robert A. Metzger - Picoverse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Metzger Robert)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s
Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.



The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is
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To April, Alex, and John

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

So many people were instrumental in the shaping and fine-tuning of this book. Their generosity in both
time and mental energy will never be forgotten. In alphabetical order, to those who helped so much in
bringing this book to light, I wish to thank: Bruce Bethke, David Brin, Marcus Chown, Tom Easton, Bob
Forward, Henry Gee, Elisabeth Maltare, Wil McCarthy, Linda Nagata, Charles Ryan, Rob Sawyer,
Charles Sheffield, Dave Truesdale, and F. Paul Wilson. Any errors or foolishness found within these
pages belong solely to me and not to these kind folks who gave me a helping hand.

Special thanks go to Greg Benford, whose enthusiasm and insights were instrumental in the shaping of
this book from the first page to the last. And to those in the publishing industry who took a manuscript
and transformed it into the book you hold in your hands, I am most grateful to my agent Richard Curtis
and editor Susan Allison.




I. THE SONOMAK
Had I been present at the Creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the
Universe.

—ALFONSO THEWISE, KING OFCASTILE(1221–1284)

SECTION I

CHAPTER1
The Nunn PhysicsBuilding, a six-story sprawl of red brick and smoked glass, dominated the northern
boundary of Georgia Tech’s campus, throwing a long shadow down 14th Street, painting the dozens of
ramshackle student bungalows that hugged its western edge in depressing shades of gray and brown.
Built six years earlier, and intended to accommodate a wide spectrum of students, the bungalows were
now the exclusive domain of physics grad students, tethered close to their professors, and even closer to
their experiments.

Dr. Katie McGuire sat cross-legged atop Nunn’s observation platform—a three-by-three square meter
slab of rain-rotted plywood, once painted black, but now weathered gray and streaked with mildew.
Wedged between a behemoth segment of galvanized ducting that carried away acid fumes and