The saddle rested on the grounds that such a device would be inoperable, but it was good for some changes. Scientists were awake and pressing on.
Half a month later, the leadership of Cosmoflot - a copy of the Earth - got a detailed report with a description of the modified Horn and justification of the cost of its construction. The estimate required for the construction of this "translator", came out about as the Martian flagship - expensive, but it is quite ascendant.
Especially taking into account the fact that people - "in the wilderness, in Saratov, to the aunt" - have managed to escape quite a lot of galaxies. Those who survived with Eden-Prime, for example, under the hundreds of thousands of other reasonable refugees. Some of them were even known to the people, by the incidents of the Cosmoflot era. They needed something to do, to cheer them up, and they had the resources to do so. By spreading them across the Earth and space colonies, people intended to have a lot of good with them.
As a consequence, a month after contact with Sednaya, the construction of Gorn began in Salisystem. Mercury's orbital shipyards are accustomed to building.
- The main thing is that we can't believe for ourselves that this thing will save us all," said one little-known, invisible, almost invisible politician, looking at the video from the shipyard, exhaling cigarette smoke.
- Won't it help us? - I looked at him with surprise, second, bald and round-headed.
The first just shook his head.
- She'll let us know what Sedna says about them! And Sedna knows something about them, it was not the standard answer "I have no information"! It was the ancient findings that gave both us and the galaxies everything we possess!...
- Of course, it will help us," the first one sighed unnoticed. The second one just puffed up quite a bit, looking at the eagle.
Gorn's assembly according to the available drawings and taking into account the almost total presence of its components in the warehouses - yes, the scientists were very persistent - was conducted at a rapid pace, and only two months later the device was ready. Just in time for the almost simultaneous fall of Tuchanka and Sur'kesh. Tessiah, Illium, Palaven, and other gala capitals had surrendered much earlier. The people's government was pretty nervous - judging by the maps of the Catapult network, the enemy was already getting closer to the chain of crossings leading to Earth. Even though these maps were drawn by the followers of Susanin and his Soviet descendants, who successfully confused both the invasion army and their own citizens, there was still some truth in them.
Gorna was launched without a pump - he was simply taken out of the shipyard and sent to the point of contact, where the contact ships continued. It was just a point in space a few minutes away from Sednah - Sedna forbade to get closer, and it was uncomfortable to communicate further - through which the maximum energy from Sednah's antennas passed.
But where without politicians - on Gorn, which was still a spaceship, at the time of the launch of the broadcast were going to be as many as three policies on a sunny scale. Jack Harper, David Anderson and Maxwell Young.
Horn, thanks to the installed inertial engine, arrived at the target in just two days - to drive faster meant to undermine the fragile structure of a strong meteorite erosion. He had already been waited there by unbridled long-haul communications ships and a yacht of politicians, which had no such limitation.
Gorn's user interface was, in general, quite complicated - but for the politicians and the opening ceremony, they made a simplified version, with three switches and a big screen, which was supposed to display no less than a solemn message from Sedna.
A representative of the Earth, that is, the Federation Council of Harper, over-commander of Cosmoflot David Anderson and the head of the colonial department Maxwell Young, went, clutching magnetic horseshoe shoes, under the applause and views of hundreds of cameras, from gateway to remote control with three switches, stood up, smiled in the camera ...
- Eye-2 reports: Reaper ships entering the system! - The panic voice from the message, which came simultaneously to all three, broke through all foreign sounds.
- Cosmoflot is a battle alarm! ..." Anderson, a bald cosmophile, yelled at his clink, turning to the exit.
- The colonies begin to move to the mode of strategic concealment - already ran to the ship colonist Yang.
And only Harper, twitching like a blow, turned back to the console, rolled the chewing - and sharply, one by one, threw over the switches.
The screen lit up obediently, and a strange voice uttered several phrases in an obscure language.
- Listen, you! - Harper yelled. - Sedna, if you can hear me, can you tell us if this will help us now that the Reapers are here?
He kicked the remote and bounced back. He sighed. He sat down on a chair and waited five minutes for the signal from Sednah.
The answer came instantly, by the standards of cosmic communication, of course - only with a delay in the transition of radio waves. Sedna knew for sure that she would be asked.
- It's possible...