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

load. Fair enough?"

"Very fair, Colonel," she said, both surprised and pleased. He was being
reasonable about this, after all. "Thank you, sir."

His mouth quirked in a wry smile. "Just remember this warm glow when you're
trying to function on four hours of sleep a night. Dismissed."

Not surprisingly, Dr. Hafner was waiting for her in the outer office. "Well?" he
asked, getting to his feet.

"All set," she said. "He took the package pretty much as I'd presented it."

"Great." Hafner opened the door and they walked together into the hall. "So тАж
when do I get my flyer?"

"How are you on early mornings and long days?"

"Haven't had anything else in years."

"Okay. Have all your stuff out at Martello Base by oh-four-hundred tomorrow.
Can the two of us load it by ourselves?"



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Zahn, Timothy - Spinneret


"We can if we've got access to a forklift." He gave her a quizzical look. "You're
coming too?"

"I pretty well have to, since I'll be flying the thing."

Hafner stopped short. "You?"

"Sure. The Army gave a bunch of us a crash training course right after the
Celeritas got shot at and they thought we might be heading into a war. I'm not
very experienced, but I am qualified, and flyers are actually simpler to handle than
normal aircraft. More automatic systems, for one thing."

"I've heard that." Hafner still looked unhappy. "Uh тАж look, I don't doubt that
you're capableтАФ"

"And if we don't do it this way, you'll just have to wait your normal turn," Carmen
put in calmly, "because I can't shift around both a flyer and a regular pilot without
flashing red lights all over my boss's board."

Hafner considered for a second, gave in with a wry smile. "Well, since you put it
that way, I accept. See you at four."