"Kay Kenyon - Tropic of Creation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kenyon Kay)

"Kiss of death," Sascha declared, gently placing the bag in her satchel like a fine piece of porcelain.

"A lot of bones here, then, Mr. Olander?" Eli saw for himself that the ravine was littered with them.

"Yes, a world of them. A biologist's dream."

"Then the place had life once," Eli said, meaning the bones, but looking at the hexadron.

"Still does, somewhere, I expect. Drought's driven them off." Geoff twisted a bone fragment in his hand, a
narrow span with an odd socket joint.

Eli knew it was more than an odd bone to GeoffтАФit was the chance to pierce a mystery or leave it
forever buried. But he saw it in Geoff dander's eyes more than in the bones.

"We'll never come back here," Geoff said softly. No challenge to Eli's authority.

"I doubt it." The planet was so far off the service routes that the Lucia was lucky to have found Marzano
and her crew at all.

Geoff sighed at the waste. "Five, six billion years of lifeтАФand all we have is what's in those sacks. I'd
almost stay behind, you know?"

Eli knew. Knew that urge to bend the rules when they needed bending.

Nearly overhead now, the yellow sun lapped up the very shadows at his feet, wrung sweat from his
hairline. Down the ravine, the ancient hexadron still had a metal glint beneath the baked-on dust. He
gazed at the thing, his mind looking for ways to bend the rulesтАж

Noting his gaze, Sascha asked, "What about the under-ground cave, Captain?" He was marshaling his
arguments. If there are ahtra down there, it will take an officer to han-dle the encounter; its a
political matter, not a firefightтАж but the justification could come later. The longer you think, the
worse your decision, went the army adage.

The chance of a lifetime rang in his ears. After a beat, Eli answered, making up his mind. "I'll be going
down."

"Can I come with you?"

"No place for a lady," he said, straight-faced.

She regarded him with an icy stare. "Will you bring Captain Marzano with you?"

"I expect not."

That seemed to mollify Sascha, who monitored the doling out of adventures with great acuity.

Eli picked Sascha's hat off the rock where she'd dis-carded it and handed it to her. "Mrs. Olander will be
hap-pier with me if you wear this. Help me win some points?"

Sascha sighed and donned the hat, a world-weary ex-pression flitting across her face.