"Dragons Dawn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

thrashed out seventeen years before in the planning stages of the venture.
Most of the 2900 colonists on the Yokohama had passed the entire
journey in deep sleep. Personnel essential to the operation and maintenance
of the three great ships had stood five-year watches. Paul Benden had
elected to stand the first and last five-year periods. Emily Boll had been
revived shortly before the rest of the environmental specialists, who had
spent their time railing at the superficiality of the Exploration and
Evaluation Corps report. She saw no point in reminding them of their
enthusiasm for the same words when they had signed up for the Pern
expedition.
Paul continued to absorb the display information, eyes flicking
from one screen to another, absently rubbing the thumb of his left hand
across three fingers. Though not the sort of man Emily was attracted to,
Paul Benden was undeniably handsome, and Emily much preferred him with his
hair grown out of the spaceman┤s crop that had been his trademark. She
thought that the thick blond mass softened the strong features: the blunt
nose, the forceful jaw, and the wide thin-lipped mouth, just then pulled
slightly to the left in a little smile.
The trip had done him good: he looked fit and well able to face the
rigors of their next few months. Emily remembered how terribly thin he had
been at the official ceremony commemorating his brilliant victory at
Cygnus, where he and the Purple Sector Fleet had turned the tide of war
against the Nathis. Legend said that he had remained awake and on duty for
the entire seventy hours of the crucial battle. Emily believed it. She had
done something of the sort herself during the height of the Nathis attack
on her planet. There were many things a person could do if pushed, she knew
from experience. She expected that one paid for such physical abuses later
on in life, but Benden, well into his sixth decade, looked vigorously
healthy. And she certainly felt no diminution of her own energies. Fourteen
years of deep sleep seemed to have cured the terrible fatigue that had been
the inevitable result of her defense of First Centauri.
And what a world they were now approaching! Emily sighed, still
unable to look away from the main screen for more than a second. She knew
that all those on duty on the bridge, along with those of the previous
watch who had not left, were totally bemused by the magnificent sight of
their destination.
Who had named it Pern, she did not recall -- quite probably the
single letters blazoned across the published report had stood for something
else entirely -- but it was Pern officially, and it was theirs. They were
on an equatorial heading; as she watched, the planet┤s lazy rotation hid
the northern continent and the spine of mountains up its coast, while the
western desert of the southern landmass was revealed. The dominant
topographical feature was the wide expanse of ocean, slightly greener than
that of old Earth, with a ring of islands splattered across it. The
atmosphere was currently decorated with the swirling cloud curl of a
low-pressure area moving rapidly northeast. What a beautiful, beautiful
world! She sighed again and caught Paul┤s quick glance. She smiled back at
him without really taking her eyes from the screen.
A beautiful world! And theirs! By all the Holies, this time we
won┤t botch it! she assured herself fervently. With all that magnificent,