"Ken MacLeod - The Highway Men" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacLeod Ken)

in, and lay prefab concrete covers over any stretches where the cable had
to be trailed over bare rock.

All very straightforward. But first we had to dig this trench through a
couple hundred metres of soil that was on the way to freezing solid.
Tomorrow’s permafrost. And the day after tomorrow’s swamp, if Alaska and
Siberia are anything to go by. But that’s the day after tomorrow’s problem.

Liam Morrison had done his bit with the theodolite and laser gadget.
His two assistants (I could see from the names on the drawing) had done
their thing with sticks and string. The line they’d marked out for the trench to
follow stretched straight from the Carron’s left bank to just east of the
station. Easy.

Our only instruction was to dig a metre deep all the way along it. By
the time Murdo had manoeuvred the Cat to the side of the river we were
lined up and ready to go. Point and shoot.

Nothing’s ever that simple.

****
 VI
WARNING LABELS

The Cat was so new you could still see yellow and black paint that had
never had dust on it. It was a new model and all. It had a big chain winch. It
had a drill attached to the digger scoop. Beside the drill was the nozzle of a
heat blaster, hose-piped to the engine, for thawing frozen ground.

So why was I down in the trench with a pick and spade and crowbars?
Why were we only fifty metres along, towards the end of the second day
after we’d arrived?

I was asking these questions not very politely.

“It’s the Ice Age, man,” Euan explained, leaning on a shovel, holding
a chain, smoking a tab, and offering advice from above. “The glaciers left a
lot of boulders when they went.”

“At this rate,” I said, wedging the end of a crowbar behind one of said
boulders, “they’ll be here when the glaciers come back.”

“Not long to wait then,” said Murdo, from behind the levers in the cab.

“Pass me the flexies,” I said.

Euan flung the chain rattling down. On the end of it was a bunch of
cables made from some fancy carbon tech. These were the flexies. If you
stretched any two of them out, wrapped them around something then
brought the ends together they could writhe like snakes into a knot. This