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

their continual reminder that three hours of sleep was inadequate for a man his
age. "How's the landing strip holding out?" he asked.

"Pretty well, actually. Those repulsers the Ctencri sell are pretty hot, but because
the shuttles use a smaller chunk of runway for both land and lift there's actually
less overall wear and tear on the permcrete. It'll need some patching, of course,
hut we've got three weeks before the Celeritas arrives on its supply run."

"Good. Do we have enough room to let the flyers lift?"

"Oh, sure. They don't need much more than their own length if you crank the
repulsers up full."

"I know, but I'd rather not run them any higher than necessary. You never know
what the half-life of a chunk of technology is going to be."

"The Ctencri numbersтАФ"

"Were provided by the Ctencri equivalent of a sales rep. Need I say more?"

Brown harumphed. "Well, they should still have no trouble. It's mostly the center
of the runway that's torn up, and the flyers can easily fit on either side."


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Zahn, Timothy - Spinneret


"Fine." Meredith raised his wrist phone and keyed a number.

"Martello hangar; Greenburg," the device responded.

"Colonel Meredith. Have the flyers been checked out yet?"

"Two are ready to go, sir. The third'll be another hour or so."

"Okay. Have the first two teams head outтАФalert the tower to monitor and record
all data."

"Yes, sir."

Meredith disconnected and returned his attention to Brown. "Planting get started
on schedule?"

"Mostly. The fields at Crosse were still too low in zinc and manganese this
morning, and Dr. Haversham ordered another layer of fertilizer laid down. His
guess was that the rivers bordering the fields cause a faster than normal ground
water exchange that siphons off the extra minerals. Or something like that."

"Great. Well, if that's the worst goof the engineers made when they laid out this