JК
Crashlander :: Нивен Ларри
Страница: 38 из 199Paying off their penalty clauses and buying motors and other equipment to put in their indestructible hulls will take so much money that even confiscating my puny salary would have been a step to the good. Interstellar business can go to hell; from now on the puppeteers will have no time for anything but running.
Where will they go? Well, the galaxy is surrounded by a halo of small globular clusters. The ones near the rim might be safe. Or the puppeteers may even go as far as Andromeda. They have the Long Shot for exploring if they come back for it, and they can build more. Outside the galaxy is space empty enough even for a puppeteer pilot, if he thinks his species is threatened.
It's a pity. This galaxy will be dull without puppeteers. Those two-headed monsters were not only the most dependable faction in interstellar business, they were like water in a wasteland of more or less humanoids. It's too bad they aren't brave, like us.
But is it?
I never heard of a puppeteer refusing to face a problem. He may merely be deciding how fast to run, but he'll never pretend the problem isn't there. Sometime within the next twenty millennia we humans will have to move a population that already numbers forty-three billion. How? To where? When should we start thinking about this? When the glow of the Core begins to shine through the dust clouds?
Maybe men are the cowards — at the core.
GHOST: THREE
I said, «And there you were in Sirius Mater, all ready to write my story for me. I guessed then that Ausfaller must have sent you both times.»
«So why did you hire me?»
«I didn't care much. The big question was, How do I tell the human race about the Core explosion? How do I make them believe? I hoped you were an ARM. Maybe you could do something.»
Ander said, «I should have asked you then. There's supposed to be a huge black hole in there, millions of solar masses. Did you see it?»
I shook my head. «Maybe the shell of novas hid it, if it's there at all. Maybe it even caused the chain reaction. Sucking gas and dust and stars for fifteen billion years, maybe its mass passed some kind of threshold and boom! Maybe you'd even find it if you processed the recordings I took. They're proprietary, Ander. Get them from General Products.»
«Well, but they're gone.» But he had that smirk again. «Where did you go after that?»
«Earth. After the galactic core, what else could measure up?»
Ander laughed.
Five teams were fighting over two prey turtles that glowed intermittently among thrashing bodies. The crowd was standing, yelling their heads off. And Ander pulled a flat portable out of his backpurse, ten inches by ten inches by a quarter inch thick, and opened it in my lap. He tapped rapidly.
Where will they go? Well, the galaxy is surrounded by a halo of small globular clusters. The ones near the rim might be safe. Or the puppeteers may even go as far as Andromeda. They have the Long Shot for exploring if they come back for it, and they can build more. Outside the galaxy is space empty enough even for a puppeteer pilot, if he thinks his species is threatened.
It's a pity. This galaxy will be dull without puppeteers. Those two-headed monsters were not only the most dependable faction in interstellar business, they were like water in a wasteland of more or less humanoids. It's too bad they aren't brave, like us.
But is it?
I never heard of a puppeteer refusing to face a problem. He may merely be deciding how fast to run, but he'll never pretend the problem isn't there. Sometime within the next twenty millennia we humans will have to move a population that already numbers forty-three billion. How? To where? When should we start thinking about this? When the glow of the Core begins to shine through the dust clouds?
Maybe men are the cowards — at the core.
GHOST: THREE
I said, «And there you were in Sirius Mater, all ready to write my story for me. I guessed then that Ausfaller must have sent you both times.»
«So why did you hire me?»
«I didn't care much. The big question was, How do I tell the human race about the Core explosion? How do I make them believe? I hoped you were an ARM. Maybe you could do something.»
Ander said, «I should have asked you then. There's supposed to be a huge black hole in there, millions of solar masses. Did you see it?»
I shook my head. «Maybe the shell of novas hid it, if it's there at all. Maybe it even caused the chain reaction. Sucking gas and dust and stars for fifteen billion years, maybe its mass passed some kind of threshold and boom! Maybe you'd even find it if you processed the recordings I took. They're proprietary, Ander. Get them from General Products.»
«Well, but they're gone.» But he had that smirk again. «Where did you go after that?»
«Earth. After the galactic core, what else could measure up?»
Ander laughed.
Five teams were fighting over two prey turtles that glowed intermittently among thrashing bodies. The crowd was standing, yelling their heads off. And Ander pulled a flat portable out of his backpurse, ten inches by ten inches by a quarter inch thick, and opened it in my lap. He tapped rapidly.