"Larry Niven - Building Harlequin's Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

Then-no point in going cold. He would wait out the next couple of years, and watch. Moon Forty-one
would graze Harlequin's atmosphere, turning vast kinetic energy into vast heat. The gas giant would eat
the moon. Some of its mass would undoubtedly form a broad ring of debris. It would be a hell of a sight,
and it would have other benefits.

Selene-the inhabited world that Moon One would become-would need shielding from Harlequin's
radiation output. The ring would be chaotic for a time, and during the next, oh, fifty thousand years, it
would block most of the gas giant planet from Moon One. But time and endless collisions would move
the ring particles toward a common orbital plane. In sixty thousand years-when Selene calmed enough to
be seeded with life-the ring would only block half the planet. A hundred thousand years later the ring
would be as thin as Saturn's, and nearly useless as a shield.

But John Glenn would be gone by then, on its way to Ymir.

Gabriel had decided to form the ring early. He'd give Selene sixty thousand years to lose some of its
surface radiation, and Harlequin itself would have time to settle down after impact. Harlequin would grow
hotter, of course. The sun Apollo was too far from the moon system to provide enough heat to warm
Moon One. Some of Selene's heat must come from a hotter Harlequin.

Harlequin's moon system had become a dangerously cluttered region, but that wouldn't last. When Erika
finally warmed, she would find fewer moons, a system thinned out except for an inner ring that had been
Moon Forty-one. Selene would be protected, to that extent, from giant meteoroid impacts.

And Harlequin's vast gaudy ring would be more than a match for Saturn's. Gabriel's gift to Erika! Playing
God had its moments.

"And why exactly are we doing this?" Wayne asked. He was shorter and stockier than Gabriel, and each
of his movements was deliberate.

Anger kept Gabriel from answering immediately. They were in the galley preparing an elaborate meal.
Windows hovered in the air, showing several views of chaos. Rings and clouds of dust and inner storms,
rainbows of light glaring through: chaos that would become Selene.

It wasn't pretty, but it was awesome. Wayne was one of the best engineers on the ship. He could fly
anything, figure out any logistical problem. Surely Wayne shared his fierce pride?

"Doing what?" Gabriel asked mildly. "We make Selene because we can.

"It's like this. I went cold knowing that they'd warm me when we got to Ymir-to Henry Draper Catalog
212776," Wayne said, being abnormally precise, no misunderstandings here, "and, and then we'd build
Ymir. They thawed me out centuries early, at the wrong star! Now you tell me-"

"They had to tell me first. Wayne, I was cold too. We're the terra-forming team, not ship's crew. And
ship's crew were worn-out, man! The captain looked like the walking dead. Erika was twitchy. I wasn't
ready to throw it in their faces."

Wayne wasn't being belligerent, he was plodding through a problem. "You tell me the interstellar drive
went wonky and we had to find a refuge before the interstellar wind fried us all. Gamma rays at six
percent of light-speed. We were lucky. Gliese 876 was almost in our path. We were down to the last