"Clark, Brian - Dinoshift" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clark Brian)

network's financial resources, was her famous grandfather.
But Gail's willing acceptance of routine chores, plus her
charm and obvious intelligence, soon made her friends with
everyone--including, to Degruton's surprise--the other four
women on board.
Degruton's own relationship with this surprising female
had matured over the years to something he thought was even
better than marriage. Their commitment had no formal
contract, their work frequently kept them apart, yet every
reunion had the giddy, sensual aspect of a couple of
teenagers discovering each other for the first time.
But it was entirely business when Gail entered SD
Control as Degruton and a couple of colleagues anxiously
watched data scroll across a screen.
"How's it coming?"
Without looking around, Mary Scheaffer waved a hand.
"Hi Gail."
"That bad, huh?"
"Not really. Just the usual glitches."
Gail glanced at the countdown display on the bulkhead.
"Seventeen hours to go. Are we going to make it?"
"Damn right we are." Mike Brown, the other member of
Degruton's primary team, swung his chair around and grinned
at the tousle-haired journalist. Even at forty-two, with no
make-up, a touch of gray in her dark hair, and clad in a
baggy coverall, the journalist continued to attract the
appreciative male eye. Mike added, "What about your doubts,
lady? Still have them?"
She shrugged. "I am like a lot of people I guess.
Intellectually I know we can't change our own past, and have
proved it. But gut-wise--"
Her mind went back four years, to the first full-scale
test of SD. She remembered the nerve-wracking hours during
which she wondered if man had finally tweaked nature's nose
once too often--

From a site in Nebraska, they time-shifted to around
500 A.D. and released a few horses into the broad grasslands
of first-millennium America. A dozen mares, a few foals and
a couple of stallions galloping away across the prairie,
hardly seemed enough for the nucleus of a viable population.
Yet Alternate 1-2125, the modern-time equivalent which was
the result of that experiment, turned out to be a revelation
--with Europe still in the steam age, and its few North
American coastal colonies warily co-existing with a
continent-spanning Inca Federation.
Unlike Prime, in which a few hundred mounted
conquistadors under the leadership of Cortes and Pizarro
conquered the Americas for Spain, in A1 the thundering
cavalry regiments of the Inca had been more than enough to