"John Ringo & Travis S. Taylor - The Vorpal Blade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ringo John)

- Chapter 1

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file:///K|/bitlord/Downloads/Ringo,%20John%20-%20Look...rt,F],%20advance%20reader%20copy)/A1416521291___1.htm (1 of 11)28-8-2007 19:31:16
 - Chapter 1




1
A Plate of XXXX@ vhysw a7msyulh
kreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer
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with a Side of Muons. Please.

"You think I should hit the order again?" Bill said, looking over at the kitchen. Service in Adar
restaurants was proverbially slow but this was ridiculous. He and Sal had sent in their orders over thirty
minutes ago and still they didn't even have their drinks.
Lieutenant Commander William "Doc" Weaver, RN, Ph.D., wasn't really happy about the lunch anyway.
He'd known Sal Weinstein back when they both worked for Columbia Defense so when Sal called and
asked if he was doing anything for lunch, he'd thought it was just a social call. He should have guessed
that Sal, whom he hadn't spoken to in two years, wasn't going to drive down to Norfolk to chat.
"Won't work," Sal said, shrugging. "But go ahead if it makes you happy. Now, about the server . . ."
Bill flipped open the menu and hit the entry for glangi with extra melaegl sauce. The thing didn't even
flash. He'd already ordered with this menu. One menu, one order. No tickee, no laundry.
"It's a damned Microsoft Vavala server with some code thrown on top," Bill replied, hitting the entry
again. The restaurant wasn't particularly crowded and now he knew why. Some of the Adar had started
to catch on that humans didn't take four hours for lunch. Clearly the family unit running this place were
right out of the Glass.
"We've got top Adar working on it," Sal argued. "Top Adar."
"You've got Fazglim and Dulaul," Bill said, not looking up. "Who are the only Adar I've ever met who
fall into the description of credit-whores. And neither one of them knows diddly maulk about server
tech. Fazglim's a natural processes philo and Dulaul is a micro-actions philo. So you're telling me you've
got the best server on the market because you happen to have a tame biologist and quantum physicist
who are willing to sign off on it. It's an MS Vav, which is one of the buggiest one servers in the world,
with code from Col-Gomo programming thrown on top. And that makes it buggier. Come on, Sal, don't
try to snow me. I know Adar tech. I work with it every damned day."
The problem was, since the opening of the Looking Glasses, the whole world, and especially Wall
Street, had gone nuts over Adar. Adar tech was light years ahead of human, but it wasn't magic. And a
lot of stuff that was sold as being "Adar technology" was anything but. The Adar had been a
philosophical race when they encountered humans. Which meant they were about as resistant to
marketing as Native Americans to disease. So more and more of them were emigrating to Earth where
"everything was prettier." And, by and large, they could command immense salaries because if a
company had an Adar, even if the male, female or transfer neuter was the training equivalent of a janitor,