"Alastair Reynolds - Signal to Noise" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

through today, I take it?”

Joe reached up and tore off the bandage, revealing only a small spot of blood, li
shaving nick. “Tomorrow, probably. Maybe Sunday. The nervelink isn’t active yet, and t
take some getting used to. We’ve got bags of time, though; even if we don’t switch on
nervelink until Sunday, I’ll still have five or six days of bandwidth before we become
noise-limited.”

“You must be excited.”

“Right now I just don’t want to cock up anything. The Helsinki boys are nipping at
heels as it is. I reckon they’re within a few months of beating us.”

Mick knew how important this latest project was for Joe. Sending information
between different realities was one thing, and impressive enough in its own right. But n
technology had escaped from the labs out into the real world. There were hundreds of
correlators in other labs and institutes around the world. In five years it had gone from
a spooky, barely believable phenomenon, to an accepted part of the modern world.

But Joe—whose team had always been at the forefront of the technology—hadn
stood still. They’d been the first to work out how to send voice and video comms acros
gap with another reality, and within the last year they’d been able to operate a
camera-equipped robot, the same battery-driven kind that all the tourists had been usin
before nervelinking became the new thing. Joe had even let Mick have a go on it. With
hands operating the robot’s manipulators via force-feedback gloves, and his eyes see
the world via the stereoscopic projectors in a virtual-reality helmet, Mick had been able
feel himself almost physically present in the other lab. He’d been able to move around
pick things up just as if he were actually walking in that alternate reality. Oddest of all ha
been meeting the other version of Joe Liversedge, the one who worked in the counter
lab. Both Joes seemed cheerily indifferent to the weirdness of the setup, as if collabor
with a duplicate of yourself was the most normal thing in the world.

Mick had been impressed by the robot. But for Joe it was a stepping stone to
something even better.

“Think about it,” he’d said. “A few years ago, tourists started switching over to
nervelinks instead of robots. Who wants to drive a clunky machine around some smell
foreign city, when you can drive a warm human body instead? Robots can see stuff, th
move around and pick stuff up, but they can’t give you the smells, the taste of food, the
the contact with other people.”

“Mm,” Mick had said noncommittally. He didn’t really approve of nervelinking, eve
though it essentially paid Andrea’s wages.

“So we’re going to do the same. We’ve got the kit. Getting it installed is a piece o
piss. All we need now is a solid link.”

And now Joe had what he’d been waiting for. Mick could practically see the
Nature
cover article in his friend’s eyes. Perhaps he was even thinking about taking