"Brin, David - Uplift 05 - Infinity's Shore" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brin David)

It might seem presumptuous to invoke the goddess of
chance and destiny, capricious Ifni, who always seemed
ready to plague Streaker's company with one more sur-
prise. Another unexpected calamity, or miraculous escape.
But Kaa had always felt an affinity with the informal patron
deity of spacers. There might be better pilots than himself
in the Terragens Survey Service, but none with a deeper
respect for fortuity. Hadn't his own nickname been
"Lucky"?

Until recently, that is.

From below, he heard the grumble of clamshell doors
reopening. Soon Tsh't and others would join him in this
first examination ofJijo's surfaceЧa world they heretofore
saw only briefly from orbit, then from the deepest, coldest
pit in all its seas. Soon, his companions would arrive, but
for a few moments more he had it to himselfЧsilken wa-
ter, tidal rhythms, fragrant air, the sky and clouds. . . .

His tail swished, lifting him higher as he peered. Those
aren 't normal clouds, he realized, staring at a great moun-
tain dominating the eastern horizon, whose peak wore
shrouds of billowing white. The lens implanted in his right
eye dialed through a spectral scan, sending readings to his
optic nerveЧrevealing steam, carbon oxides, and a flicker
of molten heat.

A volcano, Kaa realized, and the reminder sent his ebul-
lience down a notch. This was a busy part of the planet,
geologically speaking. The same forces that made it a use-
ful hiding place also kept it dangerous.

That must be where the groaning comes from, he pon-

1 n f i n i r u ' s Shore 5

dered. Seismic activity. An interaction of miniquakes and
crustal gas discharges with the thin overlaying film of sea.

Another flicker caught his notice, in roughly the same
direction, but much closerЧa pale swelling that might also
have been a cloud, except for the way it moved, flapping
like a bird's wing, then bulging with eagerness to race the

wind.

A sail, he discerned. Kaa watched it jibe across the stiff-
ening breezeЧa two-masted schooner, graceful in motion,