"Larry Niven & Edward M. Lerner - Fleet of Worlds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

They could never have imagined what, in his obsessive peering ahead, he would find.

"AND TO WHAT do we owe this honor?" Captain Nguyen asked.

Meaning that by the current schedule Diego would normally be asleep. It was all he could do not to blurt
out the answer. One step at a time, he told himself. "All will be revealed," he intoned with his best mock
pretension.

The ship's population numbered just above ten thousand. Most were embryos, sharing the freezers with
forty-three hibernating adult passengers. The crew numbered only four, between them covering three
daily shifts. Together, they filled the ship's tiny dayroom.

He had arrived early to configure the claustrophobia-denying decor. Undulating, verdant forest, the
Andean foothills of his youth, receded into the digital wallpaper. Fluffy clouds scudded across the brilliant
blue sky glowing overhead—he had no use for the cave-parks his Belter crewmates thought normal.
Leaves rustled and insects droned softly in surround sound. Most of one wall presented a
well-remembered mountain lake on which a sleek, two-toned power boat cruised. Its
hundred-horsepower inboard motor was throttled down to a barely audible purr.

Nothing, alas, could mask the ubiquitous odor of endlessly recycled air, nor could the rough-hewn planks
projected from the dayroom table disguise the plasteel slickness beneath his fingers. He twiddled the
cabin controls, tuning chirps and twitters down a notch, while his curious shipmates took coffee and
snacks from the synthesizer.

Barbara Nguyen sat first. She had the tall, gangly frame of a Belter, and her head was shaved except for
a cockatoo-like Belter crest of thick black hair. She was their captain and the most cautious among them;
which was cause and which effect remained stubbornly unclear to Diego. Throughout their hitherto
uneventful voyage, she had let decisions emerge by consensus. With luck, consensus-seeking had
become a habit.

Sayeed Malloum, their engineer, was taller still but stocky for a Belter. Each of them handled the tedium
in his own way. Sayeed's latest affectation, dating back several weeks, involved dyeing his crest and
disposable jumpsuit in matching colors. Today's hue was chartreuse, shading to deep yellow.

Jaime MacMillan, ship's doctor and Diego's wife of fifty years, slid into the last chair. She was built to
earthly scale, nearly matching his six feet, but otherwise illustrated the old adage about opposites
attracting. She was lithe while he was pot-bellied, blonde where he was dark, and as fair as he was
swarthy. Those were shipboard skin tones, of course. Flatlander full-body dye jobs and elaborate skin
patterns had been left on far-off Earth.

Jaime slipped a hand beneath the tabletop to give his knee a reassuring pat, although not even she knew
what he was about to reveal. With a start, he noticed she had printed her jumpsuit in Clan MacMillan
tartan: another silent vote of confidence. How anxious did he seem?

Barbara cleared her throat. "Spill it, Diego. Why did you call everyone together?"

Oh, how the details and analyses, all the terabytes of specifics in his personal journal, yearned to be free.
This was not the time. "Have a look." Above the picnic-table illusion he projected a navigational holo.
Amid the scattered pink, orange-white, and yellow-white specks of the nearest stars, a brilliant green
asterisk blinked: You are here. As his friends nodded recognition, he superimposed, in tints of faint gray,