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Crashlander :: Нивен Ларри
Страница: 32 из 199But those red stars … they would have sent Aldebaran back to kindergarten.
It was all so bright. I needed the telescope to see black between the stars.
I'll show you how bright it was.
Is it night where you are? Step outside and look at the stars. What color are they? Antares may show red if you're near enough; in the system, so will Mars. Sirius may show bluish. But all the rest are white pinpoints. Why? Because it's dark. Your day vision is in color, but at night you see black and white, like a dog.
The Core suns were bright enough for color vision.
I'd pick a planet here! Not in the Core itself but right out here, with the Core on one side and on the other the dimly starred dust clouds forming their strange convoluted curtain.
Man, what a view! Imagine that flaming jeweled sphere rising in the east, hundreds of times as big as Binary shows on Jinx, but without the constant feeling Binary gives you, the fear that the orange world will fall on you, for the vast, twinkling Core is only starlight, lovely and harmless. I'd pick my world now and stake a claim. When the puppeteers got their drive fixed up, I'd have the finest piece of real estate in the known universe! If I could only find a habitable planet.
If only I could find it twice.
Hell, I'd be lucky to find my way home from here. I shifted into hyperspace and went back to work.
V.
An hour and fifty minutes, one lunch break and two rest breaks, and fifty light-years later, I noticed something peculiar in the Core.
It was even clearer then, if not much bigger; I'd passed through the almost transparent wisps of the last dust cloud. Not too near the center of the sphere was a patch of white, bright enough to make the green and blue and red look dull around it. I looked for it again at the next break, and it was a little brighter. It was brighter again at the next break …
«Beowulf Shaeffer?»
«Yeah.»
«Why did you use the dictaphone to call me a cowardly two-headed monster?»
«You were off the line. I had to use the dictaphone.»
«That is sensible. Yes. We puppeteers have never understood your attitude toward a natural caution.» My boss was peeved, though you couldn't tell from his voice.
«I'll go into that if you like, but it's not why I called.»
«Explain, please.»
«I'm all for caution. Discretion is the better part of valor and like that. You can even be good businessmen, because it's easier to survive with lots of money.
It was all so bright. I needed the telescope to see black between the stars.
I'll show you how bright it was.
Is it night where you are? Step outside and look at the stars. What color are they? Antares may show red if you're near enough; in the system, so will Mars. Sirius may show bluish. But all the rest are white pinpoints. Why? Because it's dark. Your day vision is in color, but at night you see black and white, like a dog.
The Core suns were bright enough for color vision.
I'd pick a planet here! Not in the Core itself but right out here, with the Core on one side and on the other the dimly starred dust clouds forming their strange convoluted curtain.
Man, what a view! Imagine that flaming jeweled sphere rising in the east, hundreds of times as big as Binary shows on Jinx, but without the constant feeling Binary gives you, the fear that the orange world will fall on you, for the vast, twinkling Core is only starlight, lovely and harmless. I'd pick my world now and stake a claim. When the puppeteers got their drive fixed up, I'd have the finest piece of real estate in the known universe! If I could only find a habitable planet.
If only I could find it twice.
Hell, I'd be lucky to find my way home from here. I shifted into hyperspace and went back to work.
V.
An hour and fifty minutes, one lunch break and two rest breaks, and fifty light-years later, I noticed something peculiar in the Core.
It was even clearer then, if not much bigger; I'd passed through the almost transparent wisps of the last dust cloud. Not too near the center of the sphere was a patch of white, bright enough to make the green and blue and red look dull around it. I looked for it again at the next break, and it was a little brighter. It was brighter again at the next break …
«Beowulf Shaeffer?»
«Yeah.»
«Why did you use the dictaphone to call me a cowardly two-headed monster?»
«You were off the line. I had to use the dictaphone.»
«That is sensible. Yes. We puppeteers have never understood your attitude toward a natural caution.» My boss was peeved, though you couldn't tell from his voice.
«I'll go into that if you like, but it's not why I called.»
«Explain, please.»
«I'm all for caution. Discretion is the better part of valor and like that. You can even be good businessmen, because it's easier to survive with lots of money.