"Alastair Reynolds - Turquoise Days" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

Naqi recognised it immediately as a long-range packet carrier. Its belly would be stuffed with data
coded into tightly packed wads of RNA, locked within microscopic protein capsomeres. The packet
carrier's head was a smooth teardrop, patterned with luminous pastel markings, but lacking any
other detail save for two black eyes positioned above the midline. Inside the head was a cluster of
neurones, which encoded the positions of the brightest circumpolar stars. Other than that, sprites
had only the most rudimentary kind of intelligence. They existed to shift information between nodal
points in the ocean when the usual chemical signalling pathways were deemed too slow or
imprecise. The sprite would die when it reached its destination, consumed by microscopic
organisms that would unravel and process the information stored in the capsomeres.
And yet Naqi had the acute impression that it was watching her: not just the airship, but her, with
a kind of watchful curiosity that made the hairs on the back of her neck bristle. And then -- just at
the point when the feeling of scrutiny had become unsettling -- the sprite whipped sharply away
from the airship. Naqi watched it descend back towards the ocean and then coast above the surface,
bobbing now and then like a skipping stone. She remained still for several more minutes, convinced
that something of significance had happened, though aware too of how subjective the experience
had been; how unimpressive it would seem if she tried to explain it to Mina tomorrow. Anyway,
Mina was the one with the special bond with the ocean, wasn't she? Mina was the one who
scratched her arms at night; Mina was the one who had too high a conformal index to be allowed
into the swimmer corps. It was always Mina.
It was never Naqi.
The antenna's metre-wide dish was anchored to a squat plinth inset with weatherproofed controls
and readouts. It was century-old Pelican technology, like the airship and the fan. Many of the
controls and displays were dead, but the unit was still able to lock onto the functioning satellites.
Naqi flicked open the fan and copied the latest feeds into the fan's remaining memory. Then she
knelt down next to the plinth, propped the fan on her knees and sifted through the messages and
news summaries of the last day. A handful of reports had arrived from friends in Prachuap-
Pangnirtung and Umingmaktok snowflake cities, another from an old boyfriend in the swimmer
corps station on Narathiwat atoll. He had sent her a list of jokes that were already in wide
circulation. She scrolled down the list, grimacing more than grinning, before finally managing a
half-hearted chuckle at one that had previously escaped her. Then there were a dozen digests from
various special interest groups related to the Jugglers, along with a request from a journal editor that
she critique a paper. Naqi skimmed the paper's abstract and thought that she was probably capable
of reviewing it.
She checked through the remaining messages. There was a note from Dr Sivaraksa saying that
her formal application to work on the Moat project had been received and was now under
consideration. There had been no official interview, but Naqi had met Sivaraksa a few weeks earlier
when both of them happened to be in Umingmaktok. Sivaraksa had been in an encouraging mood
during the meeting, though Naqi couldn't say whether that was because she'd given a good
impression or because Sivaraksa had just had his tapeworm swapped for a nice new one. But
Sivaraksa's message said she could expect to hear the result in a day or two. Naqi wondered idly
how she would break the news to Mina if she was offered the job. Mina was critical of the whole
idea of the Moat and would probably take a dim view of her sister having anything to do with it.
Scrolling down further, she read another message from a scientist in Qaanaaq requesting access
to some calibration data she had obtained earlier in the summer. Then there were four or five
automatic weather advisories, drafts of two papers she was contributing to, and an invitation to
attend the amicable divorce of Kugluktuk and Gjoa, scheduled to take place in three weeks' time.
Following that there was a summary of the latest worldwide news -- an unusually bulky file – and
then there was nothing. No further messages had arrived for eight hours.
 There was nothing particularly unusual about that -- the ailing network was always going down --
but for the second time that night the back of Naqi's neck tingled. Something must have happened,