"Robert Reed - A Place With Shade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

"It has a rock floor, and we can insulate the walls and ceiling with field
charges, then refrigerate as a backup." She knew the right words, at least in
passing. "I've already selected which one. Here. I'll show you everything."

She was direct like her father, and confident. But Ula wasn't her father's
child. Either his genes had been suppressed from conception, or they weren't
included. Lean and graced with the fine features popular on tropical worlds,
her
body was the perfect antithesis of provo's buttery one. Very black, very curly
hair. Coffee-colored skin. And vivid green eyes. Those eyes noticed that I was
wearing a heavy work jersey; I had changed clothes after meeting with Provo,
wanting this jersey's self-heating capacity. Yet the temperature was twenty
degrees warmer than the tundra, and her tropical face smiled when I pulled up
my
sleeves and pocketed my gloves. The humor was obvious only to her.

Then she was talking again, telling me, "The main chamber is eight kilometers
by
fifty, and the ceiling is ten kilometers tall in the center. Pressurized ice.
Very strong." Schematics flowed past me. "The floor is the slope of a dead
volcano. Father left when he found better ores."

A large operation, I noted. The rock floor would be porous and easily eroded,
but rich in nutrients. Four hundred square kilometers? I had never worked on
that scale, unless I counted computer simulations.

A graceful hand called up a new file. "Here's a summary of the world's
best-guess history. If you're interested."

I was, but I had already guessed most of it for myself. Provo's World was like
thousands of other sunless bodies in the Realm. Born in an unknown solar
system,
it had been thrown free by a near-collision, drifting into interstellar space,
its deep seas freezing solid and its internal heat failing. In other regions
it
would have been terraformed directly, but our local district was impoverished
when it came to metals. Provo's World had rich ores, its iron and magnesium,
aluminum and the rest sucked up by industries and terraformers alike. A
healthy
green world requires an astonishing amount of iron, if only to keep it in
hemoglobin. The iron from this old mine now circulated through dozens of
worlds;
and almost certainly some portion of that iron was inside me, brought home now
within my own blood.
"I've already sealed the cavern," Ula informed me. "I was thinking of a river
down the middle, recirculating, and a string of waterfalls --"

"No," I muttered.

She showed me a smile. "No?"