"Dragons Dawn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

Dragons Dawn
by: Anne McCaffrey
Copyright 1988

VERSION 1.1 (Feb 16 00). If you find and correct errors in
the text, please update the version number by 0.1 and
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PROFOUND
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book could not have been written without the advice, assistance, and
aid of Dr. Jack Cohen, D. Sc., lately Senior Lecturer of Reproductive
Biology at Birmingham University, England, whose expertise and enthusiasm
helped me create the dragons of Pern, and attendant botany/biology/ecology.
Jack made fact out of myth, and science out of legend. I am not the only
writer of his acquaintance who owes him a tremendous debt of gratitude.
I am also indebted to Harry Alm, Naval Engineer of New Orleans,
Louisiana, for his configuration of the Thread Fall Patterns, based on only
casual remarks in various of my books. To his wife, Marilyn, I owe the
patient and correct transmission by Compuserve of this incredible technical
data.

PART ONE
Landing

»Probe reports coming through, sir,« Sallah Telgar announced without taking
her eyes from the flickering lights on her terminal.
»On the screen, please, Mister Telgar,« Admiral Paul Benden
replied. Beside him, leaning against his command chair, Emily Boll kept her
eyes steadily on the sunlit planet, scarcely aware of the activity around
her.
The Pern Colonial Expedition had reached the most exciting moment
of its fifteen-year voyage: the three colony ships, the Yokohama, the
Bahrain, and the Buenos Aires were finally approaching their destination.
In offices below the bridge deck, specialists eagerly awaited updates on
the reports of the long-dead Exploration and Evaluation team that, 200
years earlier, had recommended Rukbatґs third planet for colonization.
The long journey to the Sagittarian Sector had gone without a
hitch, the only excitement being the surprise when the Oort cloud
encircling the Rukbat system had been sighted. That phenomenon had
continued to engross some of the space and scientific personnel, but Paul
Benden had lost interest when Ezra Keroon, captain of the Bahrain and the
expeditionґs astronomer, had assured him that the nebulous mass of
deep-frozen meteorites was no more than an astronomical curiosity. They
would keep an eye on it, Ezra had said, but although some comets might form
and spin from its depths, he doubted that they would pose a serious threat
to either the three colony ships or the planet the ships were fast
approaching. After all, the Exploration and Evaluation team had not
mentioned any unusual incidence of meteor strikes on the surface of Pern.