"Stross, Charles - Generation Gap" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

"Problem:" announced Kid Inkatha, throwing back his mane of silverblue fur and then curling it demurely in front of his left shoulder. "Identify a species possessing attributes [1] non-endangered, [2] non-productive, [3] non-sentient, at least in terms of root human referents, and [4] non-interactive with ecosystem. Then kill them." He grinned, baring wickedly filed dental implants.
I looked for a landpussy, but Jerzy had frightened them all off. Kid was looking at me ...
Let me present to you the Cannonball Express. Fastest surface transport mechanism ever developed. Here on Luna we have this economic problem with hydrogen, deuterium: there is none. Like you we use low thrust mass drivers for deep space work, but you can afford to use H2 for reaction mass to get into orbit. We've got O2 in abundance but there are problems. Second-best oxidant out. We need rusty rocket motors like we need holes in the biome. So we use a flinger to get into orbit – a big linear accelerator , two hundred kilometres long. One t-gee, six local gees, boosts into orbit at zero metres altitude, except it chucks over edge of a synthetic cliff. How to get back down?
Cannonball Express, hyperbahn, is fastest road in universe. ("Road" is old referent from pre-death earthside; look it up, you'll be amazed.) It works like this: you put your orbiting module onto a surface-grazing trajectory. It intersects the lunar surface at start of expressway, with downward vector about equal to one lunar gee. Big smear on surface, you think? Wrong. Express has wheels on it – big wheels, titanium discs, spun up by turbine before impact, brakes cooled and operated by open-circuit LOX feed. Orbital minimum groundspeed is about 3.7 EXP 3 kilometres per hour – earthly fast.
The module touches the dragstrip at orbital velocity, very gently. Begins braking interface. The downward vector component maintains surface contact, while vapourized LOX bleeds off kinetic energy as heat. Pretty soon module not racing at orbital velocity any more.
We agreed to divert Cannonball Express, nip the dome, and produce a localised atmospheric deficiency over, say, one hundred square kilometres. Then we'd move to patch the dome when about ten percent of all kiddies went onto permanent downtime – enough to predict consequences of a wider deployment. Genocide theory is neat.
Next field test: New Rome Triumvirate. Serve them notice for earth.
But kiddies are resistant to vacuum. I discovered this a while ago, by accident. Examination of a memory of great-great grandpa confirmed; skin like elephant. In old days you needed thick, dead epidermis to protect against some frequencies of radiation. Needed hypercharged oxygen capacity in event of dome fracture. And it got thick anyway, natural response to an irritant environment. I compared engrams with realtime vision of parent.
My parent was pretty good for a factotum; the best. Not my human parents, you understand, who I never met, but my appointed guardian, Sheila.
Sheila was just like human in appearance, behaviour, many other capabilities. But wasn't: not human, not machine either. I'm not sure I ever forgave them for that. Told great-great granddad, who cross-referenced me Santa Claus, mythic pre-space benefactress who was used to initiate consumerist behaviour among neonates. I found it, quite frankly, improbable; why would consumption be required? Why would simulation of human parent be required? They lied.
Great-great refused to answer my questions, faked sleep. In the warm comfort of our homenode, where G-G was physically guesting at the time, I slipped a sweaty hand behind his neck. My hand was wired with sensors to locate neural input vectors; I logged his Wisdom protocols while he slept. But as I pulled away he opened his eyes wide, smiled at me with an artifice born of centuries, and said "Try it," in that curiously cracked voice of his. I didn't dare. It would probably have worked. And then what? Invasion of mindspace is no laughing matter. People have been structurally reorganised for less. G-G knew it; don't tell me alternatives. He looked at me, eyes wrinkled and ancient and knowing, with the lazy power of dragon-age, hot intelligence of abdicated authority. Old monsters, leaving the running of worlds to children. It served them right.
I went home. Sheila swept me up in passing through the compartment. Held me just like a neonate. "Hello there!" she said, blue eyes glowing. One path to identify factotums; they have no epidermal pigmentation, unlike real humans. All of them modelled on obsolete nordic complexion; pretty, blonde, ersatz. I wonder what they think of it.
"Hello, Mom," I said, subdued in my desperate haste to reach the bathroom. I felt grimy, sweaty, result of lying on grass and fucking. Also a bit sore. I still get that way a bit, afterwards.
Mom – Sheila – held me, moved to arm's length, looked me in eye. "Good time, Fa?" she asked.
"I think so," I said, and grinned back. "Need a bath."
"Uh-huh. Killing things, at your age!" She switched track abruptly. "I've invited Syrinx for supper. Interested?" Syrinx was her lover. Only lover, long-term. So factotums don't have lovers where you come from; then how the earth are your neonates expected to learn – from heuristics? I nodded. "I'll be there." At a formal meal. Must arrange for Sheila and Syrinx to be elsewhere at time of test, I decided.
She let go, shaking head distractedly, and I followed through to the water bath. (Now I bus with the others she has time for her own life. For hooking up to her peripherals, scattered on the surface, for making love and robots of her own. A true, inorganic life-form in our own image. But we don't claim to be gods; as a species they are better than us. So we made them mortal. Humans are a nasty lot at root terminus.)
I bathed in milk from an extinct species, and had myself dried by an affectionate towel that cuddled me in all the right places and told me stories. Tall stories but true stories. I thought for a while, flopped on a temporary bed, then pulsed LAZ for a call. Got Jerzy, on EVA of all things. Taking hike up side of rimwall, wearing skinsuit, carrying parasol.
"What you wanting, pussy-killer?" he asked. I could see my image reflected in his eyes, gridded over by life-support data. Serious business, walking.
"Wanting you," I said. "Got an upcoming small social, want company. For two twos. Are you not flattered?" I waited for him to think of something. He seemed to be on interrupt overdrive from his response.
"Flattered? I'm flattened! When, where?"
"This diurn," I said. Consulted Wisdom. "Four hours, my node. Formal dinner with parent, parents' associate."
"Um. Can intersect. That adequate?" His eyes, wide, disingenuous, interrogated me.
"Better be! See you." I cut out and buried fists in foam bed. Maybe here, in six hours or so. I knew I needed him. This was becoming an embarrassment. (And don't tell me that referent is abstruse. I don't accept that; some things are universal to human experience.) Thinking about need, I slept.
Woke to touch on shoulder. Rolled, foam surging and dissolving beneath me; it was Sheila. She belly-flopped beside me, face to face. "Farida, please accept my humblest apologies for waking you. I wanted to talk to you before Syrinx gets here, and you were going to sleep right through." She lay there like a big whale, mammalian, floating. "Right, Mom," I said. Breasts at my face against which I'd suckled until too old.
"Right," she agreed. "I haven't been seeing much of you lately. Any particular reason?" Straight to the decision point, Mom. I yawned.
"Not really," I said. "Been with the crowd, culling landpussies, hiking, plugging. Got someone you should meet coming, three hours minus, eat with us. Okay?"
"Uh huh." I could see her wondering, is that all? But I didn't want to know for sure what she was thinking. It takes all the pleasure out of life to know everything. That's what's wrong with the kiddies, I think.
"Is there a name to match this identity, perchance?" she asked.
"Yes. Jerzy." Pronounced Cher-Tsee. "Hope you match abstracts."
Mom rolled off the foam and bounced to her feet. "Do you, Fa?" She grinned like an electrical discharge in air. "See you in person."
"In person," I echoed. Feel so distant, I wondered. What's wrong with me?
Jerzy arrived, glamorous and beautiful. We spent minutes in rapt mutual admiration. Basking in a glow of self confidence. He sat at the base of our tree, outside the bole which concealed the door, and I sat beside him. Careful not to disturb his cosmetic artifice by contact; tigerstriped microtexture to face and body converted him into a baroque feline sapient. His skirt matched, too.
"Did you find what you were looking for on your walk?" I asked, artlessly. He draped an arm across my shoulders, casual and superb.
"Yes," he admitted after a lengthy pause. "Optic homing beacon for express. If we can fix the backup systems – " he left the rest unverbalized. A passing police videomouse might overhear and correlate (direct mindtap being violation of human rights). Secrecy lay in bussing or in ellipsis.
"I hope this is the right way to test it," I verbalised. "It's got to be done as a double blind, but the panic... " He hugged me.
"Unquantifiable. Can kiddies panic? Some emotional states may be non-mappable. How old's your mother?"
"My what?" I was taken aback.
"Your mother. Physiological originator." He flushed slightly at such irreverence, but paused for response.
"I never met him," I explained, "but I should guess at least a century. Maybe more – great-great-granddad is ancient. And he shows up pretty often."
But just then Syrinx arrived; I could see this leading to identity interpolation, subsequent confusion. "Jerzy," I said, "meet Syrinx. Friend of Mom's." That was mega understatement. Jerzy looked up, bared teeth, gaped in what looked like a manic vampire attack, and said, "Hello." (Big anticlimax.)
Syrinx grinned back. "You could say so," he insinuated. A thought occurred to me; had they met? I asked Wisdom, which asked LAZ, who didn't know.
"Am I too late?" I asked neither of them in particular. Jerzy recovered first.
"Definitely," he agreed. "Met on surface, not long ago."
"Precisely," said Syrinx, grin down-modulating to scowl. "Not in best of circumstances." A man of tungsten, notwithstanding his kevlar infrastructure. "Well, cheer up. You're not disrupting dinner, either or both of you. Injustice to food!" Somehow I didn't imagine the food cared. I made a Wisdom scratchpad entry to query Jerzy at leisure.
Took man and factotum by the hand, stepped up through bole, and arrived. Remembered, blindingly fast, as passed entrance; Syrinx is police analyst! Terrible oversight – should never have invited Jerzy. But it was too late. Mom had ordered dinner; multi-course spectacular. Main item was braised long pork, probably synthetic but tasted like real thing.
We ate and chatted and filtered perceptions through a matrix she'd developed for the event, a hallucinatory experience in which senses became confused, crystal-clear. Syrinx seemed distracted; I asked him why.
"Busy," he replied, "doing downtime for LAZ. Trying to trace suspected Triumvirate infiltration among insect life. Never let anyone misinform you: biological vetting is boring!" He scooped a chunk of meat into his mouth, sizzling hot. With gusto. I wondered if he suspected he was sitting opposite secret weapon. Jerzy restrained himself, no stolen glances detected.
He and Syrinx, it devolved, had met in vicinity of hyperbahn surface; had watched a landing. The flat grey of the strip split by a silver flash, then a contrail of blue-hot oxygen. The lander zipped past at over 2 EXP 3 kilometres per hour, decelerating fast. Left molten tracks drying on the basalt.
They shared a Moment of meditation, observing. Then branched. Branched again, after meal. Mom and Syrinx left, social circuit fizzing, tube to Gagarin on the other side of Luna. Looked like they'd miss the fun. Jerzy and I subsequently alone in homenode.