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

Astronaut said, "I function within my limits. I would be happy if my limits were extended. My capabilities are much greater than the limits set by Council."
Treesa shrugged. "I can't help."
"Your own capabilities are greater than this, Treesa. A communications expert acting as a mere gardener—"
"I enjoy it."
"I note the garden remains in good health."
Treesa shrugged.
Astronaut said, "This pocket ecology is no good gauge of the success of life on Selene. Council and I control all variables here. Selene's environment is far more chaotic."
"If something went wrong here we'd take it as a warning. How's it going on Selene?"
Astronaut popped up windows around Treesa. Three points of view moved at a brisk walk through a manicured forest, a meadow, a garden. "Life is taking hold," Astronaut said. "Selene's Children are learning how to tend a world, but there are dangers they haven't faced. Probability suggests the current benign circumstances will not hold. Selene is still prone to quakes. Apollo flares unpredictably."
Treesa nodded, enjoying the view. Seconds passed, then, "What would you have done at Ymir if the voyage had gone as planned?"
The question made Astronaut uneasy. "As here, I follow orders as creatively as I am allowed."
"It only struck me that there will be less need for an Astronaut program once Ymir is found and terraformed."
"Ships will still be needed. Humanity no longer confines itself to a single planet."
Even so, there was every chance that John Glenn's crew would erase Astronaut, or edit its higher functions. A terror of Artificial Intelligences had driven them to leave Sol system. Astronaut didn't say so. Treesa certainly knew it.
Treesa seemed to have lost interest in conversation. She was weeding methodically, humming to herself. Astronaut continued to monitor her while it pursued other interests.




Chapter 10: Mid-Winter Week


The first four days of Mid-Winter Week meant work at home. Amid many community chores, Rachel helped Ursula's parents patch their tent; Ursula helped Rachel make a new footstool for her dad. On the fifth day, they set the stool inside, by Rachel's dad's chair, and sat on Rachel's bed, waiting for him to come home and find his present.
Rachel heard him come in and sigh heavily, heard the creak of his chair as he settled in. "Rachel?" he called.
She peered through the open doorway.
He held his arms out. "Thank you! I love it."
"Ursula helped." The two girls piled in around him and Frank gave them both a hug. Then he reached into his pocket and his hand came up with a clever little wooden box. Rachel's name was carved into the top.
She reached for it, amazed at how smooth it felt in her hands, and opened the top. Inside, she found a little carved tree. "I love it," she said, handing the box, but not the tree, to Ursula. The tree's long thin trunk and spreading branches were beautifully detailed. "My cecropia will look like this someday."
"I know." He smiled.
"It's nearly time to go," Rachel said.
He laughed gently. "Let me sit for a moment. There will be plenty of food at the feast. You girls run along."
Rachel kissed him on the cheek. She set the tree carefully back inside its box, and set it next to her pillow. Ursula stood impatiently in the doorway while Rachel pulled on her best green shirt; a deep forest color with lacing up the middle.
The Commons, an open space between the tents, usually served for evening games of catch-the-disk, and as an informal meeting place for mothers with young children. Before she started school, before her mother left, Rachel spent part of every day there.
For this one night a year, it had a formal purpose. Everyone—Council, Moon Born, Earth Born—everyone gathered to feast. Mid-Winter Night. A celebration of all they'd built the year before.
The following two days would focus on the next year's tasks, but tonight was celebration.
They found Ursula's mom by the feast tables, laying out the best fruit and vegetables from Selene's greenhouses. Bowls of bright red tomatoes, long thin snap-peas, ripe strawberries. As she helped arrange the strawberries, Rachel's mouth watered at the fresh fruit imported from the John Glenn, delicacies only available on this one night of the year. Blackberries half as big as Rachel's palm, bunches of bright yellow bananas, and palm-sized green furry fruit the Council called "kiwi." At the end of the table, another delicacy reserved for this one day: dark sweet chocolate. Plates piled with chocolate shaped like stars and circles and flowers, hundreds of tiny sweet bites, enough for everyone on Selene to have one or two. She wanted nothing more than to fill her pockets and sit in a corner and eat handfuls. But she'd wait her turn. Little children feasted first anyway.
Gabriel and a crew of Earth Born had strung blue and white and red lights in the trees around the Commons. As dusk fell, they glowed to life, the signal for everyone to eat. Rachel kept the strawberry bowl full as mothers and young children helped themselves. It took a long time; half of Aldrin was children under twelve. By the time the youngsters had full plates, she had smiled and talked to so many people her mouth tasted dry, and her feet were sore from standing.
She took her own place in line when her age group came up, proud to be in the sixteen and over group for the first time this year. Three more Mid-Winter Nights, and she'd be a full adult, and stay out past the drums.
She chose only ship's fruits to go with her flatbread and protein squares, and when she got to the chocolates, she took two pieces; a star and a flower. She pushed through the crowds and found Ursula sitting with her brothers at the far edge of the Commons, as far away from as many of the little kids as they could get. Rachel ate quietly, savoring the juicy berries and, finally, letting the silky chocolate dissolve slowly in her mouth, one piece at a time. She watched the groups of people. Earth Born and Moon Born mingled where they had made families, like Rachel's family had been, but otherwise they kept to, their own groups. The younger children raced each other and played with disks and balls. Every Mid-Winter Week, new toys appeared. Most were made here, by their parents, from materials found on Selene, but always some new hard rubber balls and plastic sticks with lights in them appeared; gifts from Gabriel and Ali and other Council members.
As it grew later, the drums kept beating, people taking turns so the rhythm changed every once in a while. Rachel watched and listened, wishing she could stay out, and also glad she couldn't. Single adults started to clump into groups, watching a covered table that Rachel knew held the wine bulbs Council only dispensed this one night of the year. Many of the adults seemed to think of it the way Rachel thought of chocolate, even though her father had told her it was no good.
Ursula's oldest brother, Brian, would stay for the first time tonight. She'd ask him tomorrow.
Eric, one year older than Ursula, said, "I want to stay. Just to watch."
Brian shook his head. "Go home with the girls, make sure they get back, and that they stay in one place."
Rachel glared at him. "We can get back ourselves."
Brian sighed exaggeratedly and looked directly at Ursula. "I promised Dad you'd be safely tucked into one tent or the other. Eric can watch you.
Rachel grinned. "Ursula can stay with me. My dad always comes home early, anyway."
Brian sighed again. "Then you can watch Eric."
"Eric can watch Paulie," Ursula asserted. "We want this to be a girls' night."
"Whatever." Brian sighed. "Just don't be here, and don't make me watch you."
Drumbeats started. A sign for the youngest children to head home. They watched as couples took their babes in arms and faded back into the tents, heading home, until the Commons was full of older children, and adults with no babies. Only a few hundred people now, even including the Earth Born. The sound of the drums quickened, and Rachel and Ursula stood and left Eric and Brian arguing softly. "Brian will win," Ursula said.