"L. E. Modesitt - Adiamante" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

defecations. "Technology? Structures?"

"There aren't a lot of visible structures, except for those hundred or so
energy concentrations--and that mass of ruins east of the mountains in the
middle of old NorAm--that's what the records call it." The nav projected
laffodils across the web with her words.

The laffodils wilted under the image of a blazing sun. "No other ruins? Just
the one set?"
"There's the Great Wall--but we knew about that--and the non-talking heads.
There may be smaller sets, but nothing else that exceeds two hundred meters."

"Two monuments, one set of ruins, and one-hundred-plus energy
concentrations--that's it?"

"Within the system parameters so far, ser."

The sense of exhaled breath flooded the net, and the nav winced at the gale
that whistled through the circuits.

"What are the energy concentrations?"

"They look to be a combination of transport hubs, service maintenance and
manufacturing centers--with some transient housing."

"Everyone's there?" Gibreal's words lashed like a laser along the net
channels. "The whole population within some hundred enclaves?"

"Not a chance. There's almost an energy web across the planet. It's hard to
tell, but there seem to be a lot of independent energy generation points."

"So they've really regressed, have they?"

"Decentralized, anyway," temporized the nav, rubbing her forehead and blinking
back the water jolted from her eyes by the violence of Gibreal's slashes
through the net.

"Do we go in openly?" Gibreal's lashed words honed back toward the weapons
officer.

"Why not? If they're hostile we can flatten those centers, and that should
leave them helpless." Weapons projected fire and flames, and the ice of the
de-energizers. "It looks straightforward enough."

"It won't be," countered the nav. "They ruled this part of the galaxy once.
You saw what their fleet did to Al-Moratoros."

The image of the satellite of Moratoros three flashed across the net--a shining
polished sphere, lifeless after more than scores of centuries, a sphere
bathing an uninhabited planet in brilliant silver moonlight.