"Bc36" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry & Pournelle)

Beowulf's Children
Chapter 36

BEE HUNT

Linnaeus, Carolus, 1707-78, Swedish botanist and taxonomist, considered the founder of the binomial system of nomenclature and the originator of modern scientific classification of plants and animals. In Systema naturae (1735) and Genera plantarum (1737) he presented his classification system, which remains the basis for modern taxonomy. His more than 180 works also include Species plantarum (1753), books on the flora of Lapland and Sweden, and the Genera morborum (1763), a classification of diseases.
-The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia

Cadmann watched the skeeters take off, then returned to the dining hall to rejoin Sylvia. "Bees," he said. "I can't get over it. We were so bloody careful! Divert the streams, build grendel-proof shelters. Satellite observations. Nothing could get to Deadwood Pass--how could we know a swarm of Avalon bees would blow over that pass?"
She reached across the table to take his hand. "It wasn't your fault, you know."
"The hell it wasn't. We had all the clues, explosions in the mines, and instead of coming over here to look for the real cause we wondered how the Pranksters could have done it."
"More my fault than yours, then," Sylvia said. "I'm the biologist. And I never guessed. Cadmann, stop blaming yourself."
"Sure."
The comm card chirped.
"Cadmann here."
"Amigo, we have it."
"The nest?"
"A nest, certainly."
"How big is it? How close are you?"
"I'm looking into a long valley," Carlos said. "I'd see more from a peak--Cassandra, that peak--Cad, the valley runs northeast from here, with a meadow down the center. The peak, call that Spyglass Hill for reference, is at the southeast end, forty-three kilometers distance bearing two-sixty-five degrees from Shangri-La. It's a long flat valley nestled in between ridges. There's a shallow stream. No indication of grendels. Let me say that again, no indication of grendels."
"There wasn't any indication of grendels at the lake up there either," Cadmann muttered.
"I have not forgotten that. The nest is below the peak. It's the size of a hill, a lumpy hill with no sharp edges to it, ten meters at the tallest. It's big, I make it ninety meters by a hundred and eighty. I'll make my way to the top of Spyglass and get a better measure, but it's big. Cad, it might not be the only nest. We've all converged on this valley, six search parties following bees, and we all ended here."
"Compadre, that implies a lot of bees."
"You know it. Colonel."
"Okay, we'll come look." He glanced at Aaron . . . but Aaron didn't try to interrupt, and this wouldn't be Cadmann Weyland's first siege. "We need poison gas . . . wouldn't it be nice if they had a ton of cyanide sitting in a warehouse?"
"No cyanide, but we do have some good insecticides," Aaron said. "You insisted. Remember? Do you think we will need them?"
"Probably not. Carlos, don't get too damn close to that nest. Bees protect their hives, and Avalon bees have a similar lifestyle."
"It's very likely they will," Sylvia said. "There would be strong evolutionary pressure to do that. Carlos, he's right, be careful."
"You know it."

"Here," Carlos called. "Follow the coffee smell."
Carlos had a full campfire going, with long sticks poking out of it, and a coffeepot braced on the sticks. Pouring, he said, "I thought I might want a torch right handy. Those bees are like little flying firecrackers, don't you think? Your people used to celebrate the Fourth of July that way, before the Green laws got so anal retentive."
Cadmann sipped, looking down through war specs.
The bees were big enough to see as individuals, even from here, from a hundred and twenty meters away and uphill. There were thousands. The nest . . . hard to tell where it ended; the edges faded out into low bushes and tall swamp grass.
Magnify. "There are several varieties," Cadmann said. "Most are under ten centimeters across, but there are larger ones too."
"Possibly soldiers," Sylvia said. "Terrestrial ants and termites develop lots of different forms. I never heard of bees doing that, but I don't suppose there's any reason they couldn't." She moved up beside him and adjusted her war specs. Then she shuddered. "They don't look dangerous."
"Even so, I would not care to go down there and dig up the nest," Carlos said.
Cadmann continued to study the valley. "There doesn't seem to be much that's moving down there," he said. "Except for the bees."
Aaron fished out his comm card. "Aaron here. Who's on duty?"
"Trish Chance."
"Trish, we need things to happen fast."
"Gotcha."
"There are a lot of these things here. They don't look dangerous, but how would we know? Look to the arsenal. Flamethrowers need to be charged up. Think about anything else we can use. And what skeeters do we have?" Aaron demanded.
"Three charged up. One out. It's been cloudy, and the batteries--"
"Right. Okay, hang on to one for equipment. Cassandra, what small mesh nets are available?"
"Four of the twenty-meter nets, one damaged. The others would not hold a creature of the size described."
"Thank you. Trish, get somebody to bring out those nets. Cassandra, please keep available a current display of nest locations as they are reported."
"Done. Ask for NESTMAP."
"Nestmap, please," Cadmann said.
His war specs dimmed, and when he looked out into space he could now see a projection of the valley. A blinking net of bright lines surrounded an irregular mass that looked vaguely like an African termite nest. Dimmer lines indicated areas where more nests were suspected.