"Gabriel Mesta - StarCraft 02 - Shadow of the Xel'Naga" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mesta Gabriel)

Because the rough weather came at unpredictable times, with no identifiable storm season, the settlers
had a continuous battle to repair what was broken. They constantly planted the cleared fields, rotating
crops from whip-barley to triticale-wheat to salad-moss, hoping to harvest more than they lost, striving to
get two steps ahead before they had to take one step back again.

Among the casualties of the devastating spore plague had been four of the colony's best scientists. Cyn
McCarthy's husband, Wyl, a second-generation chemical engineer, had been one of them. For the first
decades, the scientists had worked with the planet's resources and environment, concocting biological
modifications of the crops and animals to increase their chances of survival. Free Haven had been stable
for a while, the arable land slowly increasing.

But the deaths of these educated people left the rest of the untrained settlers too busy with simple
survival to learn any new specialties. The colonists went about their tasks as farmers, mechanics, and
miners, their daylight hours filled with urgent matters that left no time for exploration or expansion. The
general consensus, voiced by Mayor Nikolai, was that investigation and scientific pursuits were a luxury
they could return to at some later date.

тАЬAny real damage?тАЭ Lars asked his sister as she finished her inspection of the big robo-harvester.

Octavia rapped her knuckles on the pitted and scarred door. тАЬA few more scrapes. Just cosmetic.тАЭ

тАЬBeauty marks. Adds character.тАЭ Lars opened the door, and melted hailwater ran out of the cab and
down through the flat metal treads. тАЬWe need to get out to the Back Forty and check on those
seismographs and the mining stations. That quake hit them pretty hard.тАЭ

Octavia smiled, knowing her brother well. тАЬAnd, since we're out there, you'll want to see if the tremors
uncovered anything.тАЭ

He gave her that grin again. тАЬJust part of the job. We registered some pretty hefty seismic jolts. Could
be significant. And youknownone of the other settlers is going to bother taking a look.тАЭ

The decades-old weather stations and seismographs the scientists had set up at the valley perimeter
continued to take readings, and occasionally Lars would retrieve the data. For the most part, the settlers
stayed within their safe cultivated valley, growing enough food to stay alive, mining enough minerals to
repair their facilities, but never expanding beyond their capabilities.

In the past, other colonists had tried to establish settlements beyond the main valley. Some had moved
away from Free Haven, searching for better farmland. But one by one each of those distant farms had
fallen to blight, plague, or natural disaster, and the few survivors had made their way back to the colony
town in defeat.

Octavia climbed aboard the robo-harvester with Lars as he powered up the engines. She swung the
door shut just as the thick treads began to move. Other settlers set out in their own vehicles to inspect
their fields, clearly anticipating the worst.

Octavia and Lars took the robo-harvester far out toward the foothills. Lars had the true pioneer spirit,
always wanting to find new mineral deposits, productive Vespene geysers, fertile land. He would be
happy just tomakediscoveries, while Octavia hoped to fulfill her parents' dream and actually transform
Bhekar Ro into a place where they could be proud to live. Someday.