"Justina Robson - Natural History" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robson Justina)

Mackays of Chatham pic, Chatham, Kent

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CHAPTER: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
32 33

For fun, and for my friends - you know who you are

1. Isol and the Engine

Day’s end: 5433.

Base beacon delay: 3 years, 351 days.
Speed: approaches 0.265 lights.

Fixed Stars Estimate Navigational Error: 0.0134.

Direction: Barnard’s Star, holding.
Immediate Region: infestation of scattered micro-meteors within density spectrum 0.001 to
0.032/m 3. Bhupal halo configuration suggests ancient significant explosion. Expansion
suggests incident congruent with Earth geotime 246 BC: Archimedes works on his
principles, Buddhism spreading over India, Punic Wars in full swing.
Crystals of water present; saturation density per cubic metre 4 x 10 -6; also frozen nitrogen,
hydrogen and oxygen; also carbon in the form of complex organic molecules within outer
shells of iron and non-Earth-like fullerenes. Iron ores and silicates predominate. Free gases
remain as negligible traces within immediate region.

Damage sustained: catastrophic puncturing of primary skin, significant punctures of
secondary skin. Heavy particle absorption decreased to 45%. Radiation count falling by 6
rads/minute. Essential gas loss at 32%.
Condition: critical.

A long, long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile …

Voyager Lonestar Isol was holed like a Swiss cheese, peppered with tiny wounds like a bird caught in a
blast of shot. Much more of this and her Mites would fail, her immune system become stagnant from too
high a demand, her fuel absorption become disproportionate to the fuel available ahead of her.

And I knew that if I had my chance

Isol continued to hurtle through the scouring degradation of the meteor field, still in shock at its sudden
appearance in her path. The constant bombardment, which had felt like a rough sanding at first, was now
razing her. She hurt, she bled, but her colossal inertia drove her into the grit with the force of a missile, so
that pieces only micrometres in diameter pierced straight through her at whatever vector she struck them.

Even when she’d seen it, it had been far too late to turn. She’d had a warning of exactly 1.6108 seconds
and, if she cared to love her numbers, by then it was a whole Golden Ratio too late - an entire Fibonacci