"Timothy Zahn - Spinneret" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

"We're just coming up on it now." Radford indicated the western edge of the
continent below. "You see that sort of four-fingered bay, with the big island just
off it? That's the place. Right near the mineral deposits, with several feeding rivers
for fresh water and the sheltered areas of the bay for fish breeding. The main
military base and landing facilities are on the island; the towns are on the bay or
within a dozen kilometers of it."

"Um." Meredith's eyes traced the line of mountains arcing into the bay from the
southeast, shifted to a solitary shadow fifty kilometers or so due east of the
settlement. "What about that volcano?"

"You mean Olympus? No sweatтАФthe thing's been dormant for centuries."

"Yes, that's what the preliminary report said. Anybody done a more careful check
of it since then?"

"I don't know. You've got your own geologists, though, don't you? I'm sure they
can put your mind at ease."

Meredith pursed his lips momentarily at the other's faintly patronizing tone. A lot
of the colonel's colleagues thought him overly cautious on the subject of
volcanoesтАж but then, none of them had seen firsthand the aftermath of the '88
Izalco eruption that had killed four hundred people in El Salvador. "I'm sure they
can," he told Radford evenly. "All right. How soon can we launch shuttles and
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Zahn, Timothy - Spinneret


start getting this crowd down?"

"Any time you and the crowd are ready," Radford said. "As far as I'm concerned,
the sooner the better."

Meredith nodded understanding; there'd been a lot of tension aboard ship the past
three weeks. "They'll calm down once they've got room to move again."

"I hope soтАФfor your sake." Keying his intercom, Radford began issuing orders.

Seen from ground level, Astra's color scheme wasn't markedly improved; but Dr.
Peter Hafner didn't especially care. He'd studied all the photos and read all the soil
analyses, but there was nothing that could compare to seeing the rocks close up
and personally handling them. Leaning over the hovercraft rail, he gazed at the
low cliffs flanking the narrow entrance to Splayfoot Bay, eyes tracing the subtle
variations in hue and wondering about their composition. For the moment,
speculation was all be could do; the extreme scarcity of metallic elements in
Astra's crust opened the way for compounds never before suspected, let alone
seen. He could hardly wait to begin work on them.

The hovercraft cleared the bay's entrance and headed toward the easternmost of
the three main arms. Hafner caught a glimpse of a settlement up in the northern