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

made his quick dismissal of Perez's allegations seem out of character. True, he
was under a lot of pressureтАФand, admittedly, she wasn't convinced Perez had a
case eitherтАФbut it still seemed like an investigation was in order. As for Dunlop's
dismissal, she couldn't make up her mind which way she hoped Meredith would
decide.


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Zahn, Timothy - Spinneret


In one corner of the terminal screen a yellow light blinked on. Startled, Carmen
looked at what she'd just typed, realized with mild annoyance that in her reverie
she'd tried to shift a worker who was already on a higher priority job. She blanked
the command, the yellow light disappearing as she did so. Keying for the next
page, she resumed scanning the job assignments.

One thing she was sure of, though, was that part of her responsibility to Astra was
to do her bit to lower tensions and friction тАж and to that end she was determined
to push her town council idea as hard as she could. Meredith's scorn
notwithstanding, it seemed to her the simplest way to make the civilians feel more
at home. Besides which, if the colony survived it would eventually shift to civilian
government anyway, and having such a setup already in place would undoubtedly
ease the transition.

Without warning, a red-bordered rectangle appeared in the middle of her screen,
the words TOP PRIORITY MESSAGE flashing above it. Frowning, Carmen
watched as words began filling the box тАж and felt her eyebrows climbing her
forehead as she read them.

ATTENTION: ALL PERSONNEL: SATELLITE ARRAY HAS
DETECTED ROOSHRIKE SPACECRAFT APPROACHING ASTRA. NO
HOSTILITIESтАФREPEAT, NO HOSTILITIESтАФARE EXPECTED, BUT
ALL MILITARY PERSONNEL ARE TO REMAIN ALERT.
LEGAL/ORGANIZATIONAL STAFF WILL IMMEDIATELY PREPARE
LISTING OF KNOWN ROOSHRIKE CUSTOMS AND RITUALS FOR
TRANSMISSION TO COLONEL MEREDITH'S OFFICE.

Carmen read the message twice before blanking it from her screen. "Hell in a
Stealth," someone behind her muttered. The astonished chatter was just starting
when Carmen's superior cut it off.

"All right, all right; delete the noise," she growled from her own terminal. "Smith,
HansonтАФstart a Legal File search; Barratino, you check military records;
Eldridge, start a general search for anything that's gotten buried in odd corners.
Olivero, you organize and format everything as it comes in."

The room fell silent, except for the steady sleet-on-a-window sound of computer

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