"Robert L. Forward - Rocheworld 02 - Return to Rocheworld" - читать интересную книгу автора (Forward Robert L)

--------
*CHAPTER ONE -- REGROUPING*
"All the leaves are brown ... and the skies are gray..."
The song's minor harmonies echoed in roundelay through the glittering
imp-phones that held down Cinnamon Byrd's long black braids even as she
floated around the leviponics lab. Not that any brown leaves were ever allowed
in the long rows of tomato plants that hung throughout the hydroponics
"field", their bare roots wet with nutrient spray. Nels had often teasingly
accused her of using Aleut magic to sense when the plants were not doing as
well as they should, and nipping the problem, quite literally, in the bud. As
Cinnamon passed through the tall rows of verdant growth, her long brown
fingers lightly stroked the leaves. Almost absentmindedly, she adjusted the
nutrient mixture, adding a touch of iron here, a bit more aeration there, fine
tuning the artificial ecosystem. She had only called up the ancient song to
compliment the unsettled atmosphere that prevailed on the hydroponics deck of
the lightsail spacecraft, _Prometheus_.
The ascent stage of the lander rocket _Eagle_ had left the Roche lobe
of the double-lobed planet Rocheworld, and was now heading back safely to
_Prometheus_, but despite the dramatic escape of the landing party, Cinnamon
could sense unhappiness in some of her friends. Her good friend on the landing




Page 5
party, Carmen Cortez, had not tried to contact her in days, apparently
devoting all her time to either manning her twelve-hour shift at the _Eagle_'s
communications center, or asleep in her tiny bunk on the crowded lander.
Although Carmen was right in the middle of mankind's first encounter with
intelligent aliens, she was taking little interest in the astounding
discoveries those on the planet had made and she had showed no desire to talk
over the remarkable events with her closest friend.
Closer to home, Nels Larson was also out of sorts. Cinnamon watched his
disproportionate but oddly efficient form propel itself from one side of the
hydroponics deck to the other as he collected various delicacies from the
closely growing plants. Long association with the levibotanist let her see the
hidden frustration that colored his movements. Cinnamon knew that her boss was
furious that the explorers were not bringing back the tiny sample of alien
body tissue that had been given to them by the large white alien. Katrina
Kauffmann, the biochemist who was on the surface, had explained that the
little white blob had acted more like a young individual than like a tissue
sample. Fearful of damaging the new relationship with the aliens, she had
returned the squealing blob to its progenitor. When the obliging aliens, or
"flouwen" as the computer had named them, later showed the humans their true
method of reproduction, Katrina's fears were proved groundless. Now, although
Nels would not discuss it, Cinnamon knew he was trying to think of the best
way to make sure that such mistakes would not be repeated. Cinnamon moved on
to the corridor that contained the fish tanks, long tubes of flowing water
containing trout and catfish of varying sizes. The largest trout would soon be
ready to harvest and be the centerpiece of a few real-meat special dinners for