"Mike Moscoe - Society of Humanity 03 - They Also Serve" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moscoe Mike)

"A volcano?" The captain tried for a natural explanation.

"It's not smoking like one." Sandy shook her head. "No ejecta. No deep hole."
"It's perfectly level," Kat observed matter-of-factly. "About a meter higher on one side
than on the other, as if carved by a laser."
"We don't have lasers like that," Matt pointed out.

"I know," Sandy agreed.
"I wonder what did it?" Kat's eyes were deep with innocent curiosity. Ray wondered if
this next generation would live long enough to learn the meaning of fear. His generation
had plenty.

Matt hit his commlink. "Ivan, raise orbit. Now!"



Nikki looked at the box. It had collapsed in upon itself an instant after the blinding
flash of light. On the horizon, there was a hole in the mountain range. The one they had
been looking at was gone, cut off just where the bottom of the glass had been. Emma and
Willow were gone, too, racing down the hill as if a banshee was after them. Daga eyed the
box.
"We have to get rid of it!" Nikki shouted.
"Maybe," Daga answered, pulling on her hair like she did just before she came up with
some of her worst adventures.

"Daga, look! The mountain is gone. Gone! See!"

"Yes, I see."
"What if we had pointed it at Hazel Dell, like Emma wanted?"

"It would be gone."

"Yes! Right, we have to bury that box, dump it in a pool deep in one of your caves."
"What if it had been pointed at a city?" Daga asked softly. "Now, that would get their
attention, wouldn't it?"
 "Daga, you would not!" Lately Daga had been more and more bugged about the city
folks snubbed the farmers. Nobody liked city grumps. But nobody hated them . . . not that
much!

"Probably, but it would get their attention. Those goodie-goodie clean hands might
treat us with a little more respect if they knew more than potatoes came from the farms."
"Daga, I don't like city grumps any more than you. But making a whole city disappear!
We could never do that."

"Who says we'd make a city disappear? Maybe just a hill near a city. They may be
grumps and snobs, but they learn things in school, just like we do. Think we could teach
them a lesson?"

"Daga, no!"