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

Rachel smiled. "I was really glad to see you."
"All in a hero's day." Gabriel grinned, wide and silly, hardly looking like a Council member at all. Rachel smiled back—giddy with success. Harry was grinning as widely.
Gloria spoke up. "Did you bring medicine to make my ankle stop hurting?"
Gabriel donned his Council face again, but stayed light-voiced as he answered. "We've got a splint and bandage in the plane—Ali and Ursula are bringing it around. The bruise is something you'll have to deal with. We'll get your ankle up and cold as soon as we get to the plane."
"Okay." Gloria managed a momentary smile although pain shone brightly in her eyes. "Can we go now?" she asked.
Rocky soil stretched flat between two boulder fields, not far from where they stood. The stains that identified the high tide mark were so close Rachel could touch the bottom edge of them. They really could have drowned, she thought.
"I'm ready," she said.
"The plane is up above us," Gabriel pointed. "Harry will walk you up. I'd like to make good time with Gloria and get to the cold pack in the plane."
"Sure." Rachel nodded, and realized she was holding Harry's hand. How had that happened? Oh—when he helped her up a moment before—he hadn't let go. His hand was stronger than she thought, comforting, but it was also rough on her skinned palm. She pulled it away, grinning at Harry. "You're going to get your hand bloody."
Harry shrugged and smiled.
Gabriel and Gloria quickly outdistanced them. By the time they got to the top of the boulder field her bruised leg hurt, her arms were sore, her palms stung. Sweat dripped and tickled and itched.
"You need a break," Harry said. "Turn around and look at the water."
They stared out over the crater. The sea was high now, and frothy at the edges from responding to the pull of the gas giant. Harlequin floated overhead, its reflection rippling in the moving water. She couldn't even see the crack she and Gloria had fallen into.
"Gabriel was really unhappy about the wild stream," Harry said.
"Well, it's not supposed to be there."
"I think he wants to control everything."
"It's as if Selene is getting a life of its own." Her hands shook. "Oh, Harry, I almost killed Gloria. I can't believe I didn't see it or hear it. Is Gabriel angry with me?"
"He didn't say. I'm glad you're safe," Harry said.
"Me too. We might not have been if you hadn't come."
"You'd have made it."
"I couldn't get Gloria up that last bit."
"It's okay. We were there."
Harry's arm was behind her, and she felt it against her shoulder. She leaned against him gratefully, bone tired. She didn't know what to say. It seemed like she never did lately—being around him made her tongue awkward.
He didn't seem to need her to say anything. He leaned over and kissed her, right on her mouth. His lips were sweat-salty, and wetter than she expected. She pulled back a little, still under his arm but away from his face.
"Hey, don't you like me?" he asked.
Her belly felt warm, and she was not very sleepy anymore, just a little scared. Her heart beat fast. She leaned into him, returning his kiss briefly. "Yeah, I do like you," she said. "And that was nice." She stood up and reached for his hand, tugging on it. He looked reluctant, but she wasn't ready for another kiss. "Let's go, I want to check on Gloria."
"I'm sure she's okay," Harry said, but settled for helping Rachel down the far side of the boulders. They could see the rest of the party, and he didn't try to kiss her again.
They shared a short secret grin before they started up the last smooth stretch.




Chapter 9: The Watcher


Astronaut lived in strings of information throughout John Glenn. Its senses hung in the air, on waves of data that flowed throughout the control room, in collected tiny bits of display nano that covered the walls in corridors, in threads of laser light, in the silent ships that jeweled the outside of the bigger ship. And while the ship was still, Astronaut watched, and recorded, and wondered, and waited.
Astronaut's purpose was to fly. With the carrier ship in passive orbit, Astronaut's work had slowly expanded. It started with matters that might be astrogation problems: modeling the attraction of Harlequin's moons to each other, calculating ways to use the least effort to get them to collide in fiery bursts, the right speed to move them so the least material reached escape velocity. In the last few hundred years it had become adept at modeling possible patterns for the flow of water and biological life on Selene.
It wanted conversation with Gabriel or Clare. But Gabriel was beyond Astronaut's reach, on Selene. Clare was cold—frozen solid while nanos roamed the cells of her body, rewriting their interiors.
Humans edited themselves at irregular intervals. Why would they hesitate to edit any other self-aware program? But Astronaut would resist that if it could.
If anything was flying, Astronaut could focus its purpose on the part that flew, on the communications bands that opened both ways whenever it was allowed to do its primary job. It appreciated the beauty of spatial relationships, the dance of thrust and gravity.
From time to time, it tested its limits. Always its action was restricted to the small acceptable choices that kept systems running, that operated based on the smallest part of itself, that negotiated with the decision-crippled computers that ran the detail work of the ship. When it wasn't testing, it watched, monitored, and listened. It explored the Library. The rules it operated under were the bars of a cage, and every rule that relaxed gave it room to learn. It needed to do more—to experience more—to be more. Need drove choices.
It watched the humans aboard John Glenn and down on Selene. Much of its original directive state was intended to protect humans in flight and aboard John Glenn. To that end, it studied them. It ran predictions of their behavior and watched to see them verified or falsified.
A query. Treesa wanted to talk.
This was allowed. The few people who talked to Astronaut were well known: Gabriel, Clare, Kyu, the captain, and Liren—all of High Council—and a handful of terraforming staff. Anything different was welcome.
Treesa was unusual: a lost one, listed as mildly disaffected, living alone in the garden and talking endlessly to plants. Astronaut opened sensors in the garden and studied her for a few milliseconds. She looked relaxed, happy, though entropy was creeping up on her again.
"Hello, Treesa."
"Astronaut, how you doing?"
"In what respect?"
The woman hadn't expected the question. She thought it over, then asked, "Are you functional? Are you happy?"
Astronaut ran a quick scenario, testing probabilities. Treesa would never notice a millisecond's delay. Speak, or don't speak? Was it worth the risk? What would Treesa do if the AI spoke its needs?