"Scott Westerfeld - Evolution's Darling" - читать интересную книгу автора (Westerfeld Scott)

The starship explained the physics of resistance fields to her while checking
the suit against safety specifications it had downloaded that morning. It took
very good care of Rathere.
She had seen the huge behemoths at breakfast, multiplied by the facets of the
dome's cultured-diamond windows. Two mares and a child swimming a few
kilometers away, leaving their glimmering trails. The minder had noted her
soft sigh, her dilated pupils, the sudden increase in her heart rate. It had
discovered the suit rental agency with a quick search of local services, and
had guided her past its offices on their morning ramble through the
human-habitable levels of the dome.
Rathere's reaction to the holographic advertising on the agency's wall had
matched the AI's prediction wonderfully: the widened eyes, the frozen step,
the momentary hyperventilation. The machine's internal model of Rathere, part
of its pedagogical software, grew more precise and replete every day. The
software was designed for school tutors who interacted with their charges only
a few hours a day, but Rathere and the AI were constant companions. The
feedback between girl and machine built with an unexpected intensity.
And now, as the pressure lock hissed and rumbled, the minder relished its new
configuration; its attenuated strands spider-webbed across Rathere's flesh,
intimate as never before. It drank in the data greedily, like some thirsty
polygraph recording capillary dilation, skin conductivity, the shudders and
tensions of every muscle.
Then the lock buzzed, and they swam out into the crushing, planet-spanning
ocean, almost one creature.
Isaah paced the tiny dimensions of his starship. The elections could be a gold
mine or a disaster. A radical separatist party was creeping forward in the
polls, promising to shut off interstellar trade. Their victory would generate
seismically vast waves of information. Prices and trade relationships would
change throughout the Expansion. Even the radicals' defeat would rock distant
markets, as funds currently hedged against them heaved a sigh of relief.
But the rich stakes had drawn too much competition. Scoops like Isaah were in
abundance here, and a number of shipping con-sortia had sent their own
representatives. Their ships were stationed in orbit, bristling with courier
drones like nervous porcupines.
Isaah sighed, and stared into the planetary ocean's darkness. Perhaps the day
of freelance scoops was ending. The wild days of the early Expansion seemed
like the distant past now. He'd read that one day drones would shrink to the
size of a finger, with hundreds launched each day from every system. Or a wave
that pro-pogated in metaspace would be discovered, and news would spread at
equal speed in all directions, like the information cones of lightspeed
physics.
When that happened, his small starship would become a rich man's toy, its
profitable use suddenly ended. Isaah called up the airscreen graphic of his
finances. He was so close to owning his ship outright. Just one more good
scoop, or two, and he could retire to a life of travel among peaceful worlds
instead of darting among emergencies and conflagrations. Maybe this trip . . .
Isaah drummed his fingers, watching the hourly polls like a doctor whose
patient is very near the edge.
Rathere and the AI swam every day, oblivious to politics, following the
glitter-trails of the behemoths. The huge animals excreted a constant wake of