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

"I don't like waterfalls," I warned her.

"Because you belong to the New Traditionalist movement. I know." She shrugged
her shoulders. "'Waterfalls are cliches,' you claim. 'Life, done properly, is
never pretty in simple ways."'

"Exactly."

"Yet," Ula assured me, "this is my project."

I had come an enormous distance to wage a creative battle. Trying to measure
my
opponent, I asked, "What do you know about NTs?"

"You want to regain the honesty of the original Earth. Hard winters. Droughts.
Violent predation. Vibrant chaos." Her expression became coy, then vaguely
wicked. "But who'd want to terraform an entire world according to your values?
And who would live on it, given the chance?"

"The fight people," I replied, almost by reflex.

"Not Father. He thinks terraforming should leave every place fat and green and
pretty. And iron-hungry too."

"Like Beringa."

She nodded, the wickedness swelling. "Did you hear about my little mistake?"

"About the hot-sap trees? I'm afraid so."

"I guess I do need help." Yet Ula didn't appear contrite. "I know about you,
Mr.
Locum. After my father hired you -- I told him NTs work cheap -- I ordered
holos
of every one of your works. You like working with jungles, don't you?"

Jungles were complex and intricate. And dense. And fun.

"What about Yanci's jungle?" she asked me. "It's got a spectacular waterfall,
if
memory serves."

A socialite had paid me to build something bold, setting it inside a plastic
cavern inside a pluto-class world. Low gravity; constant mist; an aggressive
assemblage of wild animals and carnivorous plants. "Perfect," Yanci had told
me.
Then she hired an old-school terraformer -- little more than a plumber -- to
add
one of those achingly slow rivers and falls, popular on every low-gravity