"Timothy Zahn - Manta's Gift" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

until we punch through whether it'll deploy or not."

"I was afraid of that," Faraday said. "It looks like we've got enough spare oxygen to make about a
two-minute burn if we can dole it out slowly enough."

"And if we can't?"

Faraday felt his lip twitch. "Then we get a pretty decent explosion."

"I hate these either-ors," Chippawa grumbled. "Well, we're still going up."

"What do you think?" Faraday asked cautiously, not daring to jinx this by putting his hopes into
words. "Act Two of your group mating dance?"

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Manta's Gift



"He's not taking us up just to eat us," Chippawa said thoughtfully. "He could have done that down
below. He's presumably now shown us to all the rest of his buddies, unless he's planning to go on
tour around the whole planet. If we're still going up in ten minutes, I'd have to say he's trying to
return us to the upper atmosphere."

And there it was, out in the open for everyone to see. Surreptitiously, Faraday tapped on his wooden
ring. "I wonder how we'll go down in their history," he murmured. "The strange beings in the
shining sphere who fell from the sky?"

Chippawa snorted. "I'd settle for being the pet frog his mother made him put back in the creek," he
said. "Forget the dignity and just cross your fingers."

Ten minutes later, they were still going up. Fifteen minutes after that, Faraday had the oxygen tanks
rigged for a slow leak. Or so he hoped, anyway.

And after that, it was just a matter of sitting back and waiting.

"Looks like more of the torpedo-shapes out there," Faraday suggested, peering at the emscan
display. "We must be back up to where we ran into Dark Eye."

"You couldn't prove it by these pressure readings," Chippawa said, shaking his head. "You know, it
occurs to me that if that skin layer out there is keeping up this kind of pressure, we may be
completely enclosed. I mean, completely enclosed."

"Makes sense," Faraday agreed. "That would be why we weren't crushed while he was showing us
off to his buddies."

"You miss my point," Chippawa said. "I'm wondering if we're even going to be able to get to the
hydrogen outside."

Faraday opened his mouth, closed it again. "Oh, boy," he muttered.