"Bud Sparhawk - Primrose and Thorn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sparhawk Bud)

In the center of one of the higher latitude bands there was a dark smudge. Pascal thought it might be the
persistent traces of the "string of pearls" comet, over a hundred years ago, but he wasn't sure. He
couldn't remember if the marks would be on top or bottom from his viewpoint. He decided to ask the
hub master about orientation.

"What a sight," Louella whispered as she moved beside him. "Gorgeous, just gorgeous," she said, with a
touch of awe. "Where are the floating stations? Could we see them from here?" she asked quickly and
pressed closer to the viewport.

Pascal dismissed her inquiry with a shrug. "The stations are too small to see from here. You're still
thinking in terms of Earth. We're over six hundred times farther out than one of the orbiting stations would
be at home. CS-6 would have to be the size of Australia for you to see it with your naked eye.

"You've got to remember that each one of those weather bands is several thousand miles across," Pascal
continued as he backed away from the view-port and the terrifying precipice it represented. "We could
put the entire Pacific inside any one of them and still have plenty of room left over."

Louella's face took on a rapt expression as she absorbed the scale of what she was observing. "You
could sail forever in those seas," she breathed heavily. "Forever."

Rams encountered his first problem when he was thirty hours under way. Primrose had been beating
steadily to windward since he left CS-15. By his projections they should have been slightly north of the
projected track of CS-42, the next station in line. This leg of his upwind trip would be two thousand
kilometers long before he came about and headed south on the shorter lee leg. That was as far as he
could travel and stay within the limits Weather had advised. He couldn't go beyond the MM sub-band
without risking excessive turbulence. No, he thought, it was better to keep to the smooth and dependable
jets of air in the middle of the band.

It was no small effort to steer Primrose between the two stations. CS-15 had been moving westward at
a steady twenty-six meters per second under the slower westward winds of the KK sub-band.

The two stations had been about eight thousand kilometers apart when he had departed. He had planned
to tack about eight times across the face of the wind; four 2,000-kilometer legs to the north and four
3,000-kilometer legs to the south. The southern tacks would gain him the least progress but give him
good position to intercept the station as it raced toward him.

It was a good sail plan. The only problem was that it wasn't working out. The inertial guidance system
indicated that, instead, he was steadily bearing west of his projected course. Rams checked the set of the
sails and the pressure readings. Using these numbers, he calculated that Primrose was still bearing forty
degrees to the wind, just as he had planned. What could be wrong? Was he was being blown off course
by an unexpected head wind?

An hour later he understood the situation. Something was disturbing the "smooth laminar flow"
predictions of Weather. He just encountered a more northerly wind than expected. He decided to adjust
his tacking strategy to adapt to the shift. He'd have to take a longer line on the southern tack. But the
slower passage would put him at risk from the storm, which could mean big trouble.

He plotted his course for the next ninety hours with great care.