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

she thought.
She opened the news summary and started reading. Five minutes later she was waking Mina.

'I don't think I want to believe it,' Mina Okpik said.
Naqi scanned the heavens, dredging childhood knowledge of the stars. With some minor
adjustment to allow for parallax, the old constellations were still more or less valid when seen from
Turquoise.
'That's it, I think.'
'What?' Mina said, still sleepy.
Naqi waved her hand at a vague area of the sky, pinned between Scorpius and Hercules.
'Ophiuchus. If our eyes were sensitive enough, we'd be able to see it now: a little prick of blue light.'
'I've had enough of little pricks for one lifetime,' Mina said tucking her arms around her knees.
Her hair was the same pure black as Naqi's, but trimmed into a severe, spiked crop which made her
look younger or older depending on the light. She wore black shorts and a shirt that left her arms
bare. Luminous tattoos in emerald and indigo spiralled around the piebald marks of random fungal
invasion that covered her arms, thighs, neck and cheeks. The fullness of the moons caused the
fungal patterns to glow a little themselves, shimmering with the same emerald and indigo hues.
Naqi had no tattoos and scarcely any fungal patterns of her own; she couldn't help but feel slightly
envious of her sister's adornments.
Mina continued, 'But seriously, you don't think it might be a mistake?'
'I don't think so, no. See what it says there? They detected it weeks ago, but they kept quiet until
now so that they could make more measurements.'
'I'm surprised there wasn't a rumour.'
Naqi nodded. 'They kept the lid on it pretty well. Which doesn't mean there isn't going to be a lot
of trouble.'
'Mm. And they think this blackout is going to help?'
'My guess is official traffic's still getting through. They just don't want the rest of us clogging up
the network with endless speculation.'
'Can't blame us for that, can we? I mean, everyone's going to be guessing, aren't they?'
'Maybe they'll announce themselves before very long,' Naqi said doubtfully.
While they had been speaking the airship had passed into a zone of the sea largely devoid of
bioluminescent surface life. Such zones were almost as common as the nodal regions where the
network was thickest, like the gaping voids between clusters of galaxies. The wake of the sensor
pod was almost impossible to pick out, and the darkness around them was absolute, relieved only
by the occasional mindless errand of a solitary messenger sprite.
Mina said: 'And if they don't?'
'Then I guess we're all in a lot more trouble than we'd like.'
For the first time in a century a ship was approaching Turquoise, commencing its deceleration
from interstellar cruise speed. The flare of the lighthugger's exhaust was pointed straight at the
Turquoise system. Measurement of the Doppler shift of the flame showed that the vessel was still
two years out, but that was hardly any time at all on Turquoise. The ship had yet to announce itself,
but even if it turned out to have nothing but benign intentions -- a short trade stopover, perhaps –
the effect on Turquoise society would be incalculable. Everyone knew of the troubles that had
followed the arrival of Pelican in Impiety. When the Ultras moved into orbit there had been much
unrest below. Spies had undermined lucrative trade deals. Cities had jockeyed for prestige,
competing for technological tidbits. There had been hasty marriages and equally hasty separations.
A century later, old enmities smouldered just beneath the surface of cordial intercity politics.
It wouldn't be any better this time.
 'Look,' Mina said, 'it doesn't have to be all that bad. They might not even want to talk to us.
Didn't a ship pass through the system about seventy years ago without so much as a by-your-leave?'