Brin, David / Брин, Дэвид - Собрание сочинений (86 произведений) [1980-2024, fb2/epub ENG]

The Practice Effect / Дело практики 2009, epub, ISBN: 978-0-307-57502-9, Spectra / Ballantine Books The Postman / Почтальон 1985, fb2, ISBN: 0-553-05107-5, Bantam Spectra; 2010, epub, ISBN: 978-0-307-57501-2, Spectra / Ballantine Books Heart of the Comet 1986, fb2, ISBN: 0-553-05125-3, Bantam Spectra; 1997, epub, ISBN: 1-85723-436-7, Orbit (with Gregory Benford) Earth 1990, fb2, ISBN: 0-553-07064-9, Bantam Books; 2024, epub (retail), ISBN: 978-1-5040-8634-9, Open Road Integrated Media Glory Season 1993, fb2, ISBN: 0-553-07645-0, Bantam Spectra; 2024, epub (retail), ISBN: 978-1-5040-8635-6, Open Road Integrated Media Foundation's Triumph / Триумф Академии 1999, fb2, ISBN: 0-06-105241-8, HarperPrism; 2009, epub, ISBN: 978-0-06-179534-3, HarperCollins e-books The Ancient Ones 2020, epub, ISBN: 978-1-70798-865-5, David Brin

The River of Time 1986, fb2; 1987, epub, ISBN: 0-553-26281-5, Bantam Spectra Otherness 1994, epub Tomorrow Happens 2003, epub Insistence of Vision 2016, epub, eISBN: 978-1-943486-82-3, Fiction Studio Books Complete Short Fiction 2023, epub, ISBN: нет, Jerry eBooks

Makanee

Jijo's ocean stroked her flank like a mother's nuzzling touch or a lover's caress. Though it seemed a bit disloyal, Makanee felt this alien ocean had a silkier texture and finer taste than the waters of Earth, the homeworld she had not seen in years. With gentle beats of their powerful flukes, she and her companion kept easy pace beside a tremendous throng of fishlike creatures — red-finned, with violet gills and long translucent tails that glittered in the slanted sunlight like plasma sparks behind a starship. The school seemed to stretch forever, grazing on drifting clouds of plankton, moving in unison through coastal shallows like the undulating body of a vast complacent serpent. The creatures were beautiful... and delicious. Makanee performed an agile twist of her sleek gray body, lunging to snatch one from the teeming mass, provoking only a slight ripple from its nearest neighbors. Her casual style of predation must be new to Jijo, for the beasts seemed quite oblivious toward the dolphins. The rubbery flesh tasted like exotic mackerel. "I can't help feeling guilty," she commented in Underwater Anglic, a language of clicks and squeals that was well-suited to a liquid realm where sound ruled over light. Her companion rolled alongside the school, belly up, with ventral fins waving languidly as he grabbed one of the local fish for himself. "Why guilty?" Brookida asked, while the victim writhed between his narrow jaws. Its soft struggle did not interfere with his train of word-glyphs, since a dolphin's mouth plays no role in generating sound. Instead a rapid series of ratcheting sonar impulses emanated from his brow. "Are you ashamed because you live? Because it feels good to be outside again, with a warm sea rubbing your skin and the crash of waves singing in your dreams? Do you miss the stale water and moldy air aboard ship? Or the dead echoes of your cramped stateroom?" "Don't be absurd," she snapped back. After three years confined aboard the Terran survey vessel, Streaker, Makanee had felt as cramped as an overdue fetus, straining at the womb. Release from that purgatory was like being born anew. . . .

To my brothers Dan and Stan,

to Arglebargle the IVth…

and to somebody else.

PART I … it is reasonable to hope that in the not too distant future we shall be competent to understand so simple a thing as a star. A. S. Eddington, 1926

1. OUT OF THE WHALE-DREAM

“Makakai, are you ready?” Jacob ignored the tiny whirrings of motors and valves in his metal cocoon. He lay still. The water lapped gently against the bulbous nose of his mechanical whale, as he waited for an answer. One more time he checked the tiny indicators on his helmet display. Yes, the radio was working. The occupant of the other’ waldo whale, lying half submerged a few meters away, had heard every word. The water was exceptionally clear today. Facing downward, he could see a small leopard shark swim lazily past, a bit out of place here in the deeper water offshore. “Makakai… are you ready?” He tried not to sound impatient, or betray the tension he felt building in the back of his neck as he waited. He closed his eyes and made the delinquent muscles relax, one by one. Still, he waited for his pupil to speak. “Yesss… let’sss do it!” came the warbling, squeaky voice, at last. The words sounded breathless, as if spoken grudgingly, in lieu of inhalation. A nice long speech for Makakai. He could see the young dolphin’s training machine next to his, its image reflected in the mirrors that rimmed his faceplate. Its gray metal flukes lifted and fell slightly with the swell. Feebly, without their power, her artificial fins moved, sluggishly under the transient, serrated surface of the water. She’s as ready as she’ll ever be, he thought. If technology can wean a dolphin of the Whale-Dream, now’s the time we’ll find out. He chinned the microphone switch again. “All right, Makakai. You know how the waldo works. It will amplify any action you make, but if you want the rockets to cut in, you’ll have to give the command in English. Just to be fair, I have to whistle in trinary to make mine work.” “Yesss!” she hissed. Her waldo’s gray flukes thrashed up once and down with a boom and a spray of saltwater. . . .

Добавлено: Brin, David - The Ancient Ones - 2020.epub

Добавлено: Brin, David - The River of Time - 1987.epub (к имеющемуся fb2)

Добавлено: 01 Brin, David - Kiln People (Kiln) - 2011.epub (retail epub к имеющемуся fb2) Brin, David - Complete Short Fiction - 2023.epub

Заменено: Brin, David - Earth - 2009.epub на Brin, David - Earth - 2024.epub (на файл лучшего качества) Brin, David - Glory Season - 2011.epub на Brin, David - Glory Season - 2024.epub (на файл лучшего качества)