"duane,.dianne.-.spider.man.-.octopus.agenda" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duane Diane)

either of considerable prior experience or equally considerable recent
training. Firing up the big gasoline engine that powered its winch,
they began raising the drill up and out of the shaft until at last the
carborundum-diamond drill bit itself rose from the hole. It was
unlatched and swung clear, the engine shut down again; and after that,
they waited.

A few minutes later another group came down the terraces, moving with
the same ease as the team that had carried Heffernan and Pulaski. This
new group was carrying something else: a long metal cylinder, and for
all that it seemed both heavy and clumsy, the team moved in a perfect
unison that was almost graceful. They too had evidently practiced
before going into action, so that now what they were doing looked
easy.

It couldn't have been as easy as all that. When they finally came
level with the boring machinery, tilted the cylinder upright, and
lowered one end to the ground not too far from where Jim was sitting,
he could hear and feel the ponderous thud of something far more massive
than it looked. The careful way they handled it suggested something
else as well: that it was dangerous in a way far beyond mere weight.

The man with the tentacles strode over to it and raised one of his
real arms to touch it in a strange gesture that was almost
affectionate, the way one might stroke a pet or pat the trunk of a
familiar tree. One or two of the metal arms curved around to touch the
cylinder, as if recognizing some odd kinship. Then the man said,
"Carry on."

The lifting gear that had withdrawn the bore and its bit was now
attached to linkages recessed into the shell of the cylinder; then the
engine coughed into life once more, taking up the slack, and the
cylinder was raised, swung into place, and slowly lowered into the
waiting borehole. Jim still making sure that his watching wasn't
obvious, couldn't help but be impressed at how exactly the cylinder
fitted. Someone knew exactly what equipment was being used here, even
down to the width of the bore sampler nand that could change from day
to day.

But what was that thing... ?

As the cylinder dropped out of sight, he was reminded of a huge
cartridge being loaded into a massive gun. For a long time after it
vanished, the cables supporting it kept unrolling from their drums. He
had known in a general way how deep this bore was. Two miles, someone
had said once. But until you actually watched how much cable two miles
really was, and how long it took to feed that huge length down into the
ground, the words had no real meaning.

The bits and the samplers were always hot when they came back up,