"Daniel Keys Moran - Lord November" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moran Daniel Keys)

super-jumbo-sized man wearing jeans and a sweater that were almost as black as his beard. The
nickname he bore gave him mild amusement; at least he hadn't been stuck with "Tiny." He was slightly
surprised to find Father Michael up and about. "Little late for you, isn't it?" He glanced at his reading
tablet, tapped for the time: "It's after three."
Father Michael Wellsmith shook his head. A tall, spare man with clear, pale gray eyes, at that moment
he looked as tired as Bear had ever seen him. The faint wrinkles that were always visible around his eyes
had grown deep. "Can't sleep. Aren't you cold in here?"
Bear glanced around at the lounge. About eighty meters on a side, it had only a few real (and
therefore comfortable) chairs; the rest being made of memory plastic that withdrew into the floor when
not needed. It was the closest thing to a social gathering place the colonists had available to them, though
it lacked virtually every amenity such a place would have had on Earth, and most of those it would have
had back at St. Peter's. Now, late at night, the glowpaint was dimmed to twilight gray, to help bring out
the holofield Bear sat watching. Across one entire wall of the lounge, the holo of Ganymede's sky shone
eerily real. The steady stars seemed improbably bright and numerous to a pair of men born and raised to
adulthood deep inside Earth's atmospheric blanket. Jupiter covered a quarter of the sky, a dim swirl of
red and orange and yellow.
Bear shook his head. "No. Is it really any colder here than in your quarters?"
Father Michael shivered. "It feels so."
Bear gestured to the large thermos resting beside his boots on the small table. "Get yourself a cup
from the bar." Father Michael did; Bear poured for him. "Got no cream or sugar, unless you want to go
down to the commissary."
Father Michael shook his head. "Black is fine." He seated himself in the foam chair nearest Bear,
cradling the warm cup between his hands. The coffee wasn't Earth grown, he could smell that much; but
at least it didn't have the acrid tang of Belt synth. Martian, most likely.
He looked up from his coffee and stared at the ship.
It squatted there in the center of the holo. Looking at it strained his eyes. Something like it might have
been formed by spinning steel spider webs, fashioning it into the general shape that was desired, and
melting it until most of the surfaces had fused together. Altogether it seemed not so much constructed as
grown.
Father Michae said without looking away, "I understand our messages aren't getting through."
Bear shrugged. "Just a guess. I can't imagine how they're doing it, if they are. We aim lasers inSystem,
but we're not getting any responses back. Not from St. Peter's, not from Earth. I wouldn't have believed
it was possible if I wasn't seeing it. Something's stopping us getting through."
"No further word?"
"From the aliens? Not since you told them to go to Hell." Bear sipped at his coffee. "May not have
been the wisest thing you could have done, Father."
Father Michael nodded wearily. "Yes...what are you reading?"
Bear took his time answering. He was the only avowed atheist on Ganymede; their chief engineer, and
one of their two administrators, he was a refugee from Earth who had found status and security at St.
Peter's CityState. He had claimed on occasion, although never in front of Peaceforcer Evans, to have
been prominent in the American Johnny Rebs before leaving Earth; the implication being that his very
prominence among those rebels had made the leaving necessary. A thing he did not boast of, but which
Father Michael knew to be true, was that he was the younger brother of Neil Corona, one of the great
American heroes from the final days of the Unification War. "Uhm," Bear said finally, "it's a religious
text."
Father Michael did not smile. "Indeed."
"An old one."

The Nicene Creed:
 I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth, and all things visible