"C. Sanford Lowe & G. David Nordley - The Small Pond" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lowe C Sanford)

Chaos, Liz thought. Why couldn’t they just let the decision stand?
No, Cyan. Thank you but no. The whole thing’s chancy and the last thing
I’d want is to screw up the project, and get killed, too.
Wait.
Liz! Judi Lalande broke the quiet. In one hour, we can no longer accelerate
the net. Martin’s moon is getting in the way.
Yes, Judi, Liz here. I understand. I may end up seeing this explosion
first-hand. You know what? I’m not scared. It’s like letting go. Liberating in a
way. What will happen will happen. I accept that. Just get that shuttle here!
Silence. It gave her a momentary chill. Would they respect her wishes? She
tried to contemplate her humiliation if they did not and the project got screwed up.
She smiled to herself. Risky behavior was nothing new to her, and here it was, the
ultimate. Triumph or die. Or triumph and die. Either way, glory.
As if floating on air, Liz started running toward David. There was still time to
grab him and at least get away from Martin.
 She stopped bouncing and opened a radio channel to David.
“David. What’s going to happen is going to happen. There’s nothing more
that anyone can physically do. The net is on its way; we should be able to see the
intercept. It may work. Meanwhile there’s a crewless shuttle on its way to take us
off. It may get here in time even if the net doesn’t work. There’s no point in running
from me anymore.”
“I cannot believe you.”
Liz looked up into the sky and asked for a reticular circle where the net was. It
floated in front of her eyes at infinity, a faint red circle. There, in its center, was a tiny
spider web.
“David, believe your own eyes then. Look up, in Ursa Major, a little left of
Mizar and Alcor, there’s a faint, tiny web.”
It grew even as she watched. Liz touched the net. Forty minutes until impact.
Even without additional boost from the project projectors, the device was traveling
at a hundred and thirty kilometers a second.
Maybe too fast, she realized. She looked at the projections; ninety percent of
the net cords were predicted to fail on impact. Would the remaining ten percent be
enough? Things would stretch, of course.
David materialized from the dark into the glow of her helmet light. “You
planned it this way, didn’t you! You all did.”
Liz didn’t bother to answer that. He was here; that was all that counted.
“You’re not thinking clearly. Let’s get to the shuttle rendezvous.”
David caught up to her and they both turned toward the dark sky standing
side by side. “When?”
“Thirty minutes for the net impact, about three hours for the main event and
the shuttle landing.”
Wordlessly, they headed for the landing field, about three kilometers away.
The net zoomed by overhead, moving at the apparent rate of a high altitude
aircraft or a satellite; but it was much farther away and moving much faster. As it
approached the planetoid, its angular rate grew less and less; a trick of perspective,
Liz realized. The net now moved almost directly away from them. It would have
been better, she thought, if it could have hit the planetoid from the side, but this
would be almost as good. It only had to slow it a little, just enough for Martin to
move a little farther from under it.
The net vanished, invisible against the glowing gas surrounding the planetoid.