"Bud Sparhawk - Alba Krystal" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sparhawk Bud)

the real atmosphere of Grimm started to build up.

We like to think of the pressure regions around Grimm as if they were the layers of an onion. And since
Grimm is such a huge giant of a planet, there were dozens of layers, each with its own peculiarities.

Since the force of gravity builds up as the inverse square of the distance from the core and the density of
its atmosphere goes up proportionally, the pressure layers get thinner and thinner as we go down.

Which brings us conveniently to the place where our ship floats on the denser layer as a cork on the seas
of Earth. That's about the P15 layer.

Jock guided us over the spot Alice predicted the upwelling would hit P22 and we all moved to the
'scaphs, strapped in, and sank down to the P22 layer. It was a piece of cake -- if you had the foresight
to ballast your craft correctly, pressurize the interior to something you could stand and keep track of
about fifty tell-tales whose red glow on your instrument panel meant the difference between life and death
down here.

That all taken care of, you just steered yourself to the glimmering specks on the scope, ignoring the false
returns, praying you weren't going too deep or that you'd see the transponder mark of another 'scaph and
be able to avoid ramming a crew mate.

Once you reached the proper place you squirt your little steering nozzles to guide the maw of the ore
scoop hanging under you to the biggest chunks the volcanoes of Grimm have thrown up until the hold is
filled and then toss out ballast and rise to where the transport awaits. Of course, you have to keep trim as
you scoop ore, tossing off an equivalent amount of ballast to the ore you scoop so you don't sink down
to the jet stream on the P23 layer.

The fact that you do all of the above while whipping around in a vertical blast of hot gas that would make
mother Earth's typhoons seem gentle breezes by comparison is the reason we need two of us in the
'scaph; one pilots while the other operates the gathering process.

We're really not sure about the volcanoes of Grimm. That's just a theory since nobody's ever seen the
surface of the place. Hell, we're barely in the stratosphere as far as Grimm is concerned! But whatever is
blowing the ore our way blows us good fortune, for, in ascending on the rising thermal the molten magma
cools, crystallizes and changes into a most fantastic gem -- the pyrad.

Fire it has, like the opal, and the stars of the finest ruby. Color? Any you want, except black. Hold one in
your hand and you can see in its miniature depths the birth of a universe; fire and ice, stars and glory.

They are the gem any woman and most men would give anything to own. They are beauty, Alba wears
seven, one from each of us.

We were all snug and happy on our way back up, despite the cold, the smell of each other's sweat, and
the deadening feeling of all that poison around us -- we were happy. Stowed in the belly of the transport
were at least billions in pyrad. We'd collected the purest, finest specimens any of us had ever seen. The
transport was carrying its maximum load, no ballast but the ore itself. It was the weight of all that money
that kept us from getting back to the station as fast as we wanted. And despite our common thoughts
about lovely, lovely Alba waiting to greet us none wanted to drop so much as a grain of the precious
cargo.