"Joan D. Vinge - Lost in Space" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vinge Joan D)

(Proofed by VanTransyl)




Prologue
“Hypergate Docking, this is Grissom One. Request final descent vector.” The pilot of the Grissom One
looked out at the view slowly filling the bubble dome of the ship’s bridge, and smiled. There was no other
choice, when you first saw this view. No matter how many times you saw it, it was like nothing else: the
Earth hanging in space, a blue opal on black velvet... and in the nearer distance the spires of the space
station sitting like a crown on the surreal, ten-mile-circumference construct of the hypergate.
Construction workers looked up, their helmet faceplates mirroring sunlight as bright as their laser torches,
to watch the ship’s silhouette pass overhead. The gate’s structure was almost finished; soon it would be
humanity’s first conduit through hyperspace.
“Roger, Grissom One, this is Hypergate Docking Control.” Bill Randall’s familiar voice was comfortably
serene in her headset speakers. “You are cleared to land. Hope you got some Partagas in that rust
bucket, Sal.”
Sal grinned as she fed landing coordinates to the onboard computers and felt the ship’s thrusters fire in
response. The cargo vessel’s trajectory began to shift slowly and precisely, aligning its angle of approach
to the designated docking platform. “I brought you the most amazing-“
Randall never found out what. Death fell out of the starry night and exploded the Grissom One’s bridge,
swallowing the freighter in a ball of fire.
Major Don West shifted in his gyroscopic harness, working the heads-up holographic display as his
V-winged craft launched from the ASOMAC fighter base. The ship cut through the night like a silent
scream as he vectored toward the expanding cloud of debris. The cockpit was a bubble of transparent
alloy, set like a pearl at the nose of his craft; his controls gave him almost a 360 view of the hypergate
ring, the freighter’s remains at its center... and the enemy.
The gaping work crews vanished behind him in a heartbeat, while ahead of him the expanding blizzard of
jagged shrapnel hurtled toward his ship... and toward the surface of the half-finished hypergate structure.
Two blunt-nosed Sedition ships burst through the tumbling debris-the same ships that had just blown the
freighter to bits.
“Who hit us?” Jeb Walker’s voice demanded over his comm link.
The Ranger One entered West’s peripheral vision, its extended wings taloned with gleaming weaponry;
the twin of his own Eagle One except for its markings. He smiled as he saw the shark-toothed grin
painted on Walker’s right wing, and the cosmic Hand of Fate on the left.
His own wing bore an eagle’s shadow and an eagle’s eye; everything a hunter needed, nothing more.
Sometimes Jeb thought too much... But there was nobody he trusted more. Jeb had been his buddy,
back watcher, and cheerful rival ever since their Academy days.
“Sedition raiders,” West said grimly. “They’ve never come this far out before.”
Walker grunted. “This cold war just got hot.”
The enemy ships vectored across the hypergate’s arc; their plasma cannons blasted gaping holes in its
superstructure. West spun his controls, seeing the entire scene in one giddy rush as he veered off after the
closest raider. “Last one to kill a bad guy buys the beer.” He activated his targeting computer.
Whatever else the Sedition raiders were, they were good pilots. The insectoid ship, its angular arms
bristling with weaponry, danced infuriatingly in and out of the crosshairs inside his holographic array.
West fired, cursing in frustration as the attacker jagged upward at a ninety-degree angle, and his laser
burst burned vacuum.
He dodged hurtling debris, closing in on the fleeing raider as if he and his ship shared a single mind. The
fraction of his attention that was always watching his partner’s back told him Walker had engaged the
other attacker; the lancing bolts of energy were a psychedelic light show below his feet. “Hey Jeb,” he