"Larry Niven - Building Harlequin's Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

feet above the forest floor. Webs of thin young lianas, vines, curled up trunks and hung down from
branches, reaching for ground and sky together. Light in this part of the grove shone low and hazy,
mysterious. The air smelled damp and rich, as if the canopy held in the scents of growth. It was Rachel's
favorite place.

Once, Gabriel had told her that the First Trees were planted too close together. He had miscalculated
how much Selene's oxygen-rich atmosphere and three-quarter Earth gravity would elongate everything
that grew on the moon-stems, and branches, and people. He'd said trees were shorter and fatter on
Earth. Rachel liked the intertwined effect-it made the First Forest dark and intriguing.

Gabriel's voice brought her back to the present. "Now we move on to the practical. Your combined
score determines whether or not you become a Horticulture Terraformer. If you don't pass, there are
other choices for work."

Rachel's stomach clenched. Not me. I have to be around trees. I have to help plant Selene. I have to
pass! She imagined her father's voice in her ear, suggesting she "breathe," saying, "My daughter can
do anything."

"Some of our evaluation will be based on the work you did during class. That tells us how you approach
day-to-day tasks," Gabriel said. A few children groaned. Ursula and Rachel grinned at each other; this
was good for them, they worked hard. "We'll also judge how well you've learned the system's ecology
behind terraforming. First, Ali will question you as a group."

Rachel and Ursula sat next to each other. They squeezed each other's hands, passing a wish for luck
back and forth. Ali faced the class, sitting cross-legged on a waist-high black dais. She opened a data
window beside her, opaqued it white, and left it suspended in air to her right. "First, tell me what is in the
base nutrient mixture?"

An easy question. Rachel chose to let one of the younger children answer it. Two of them, and Andrew,
all registered an answer at almost the same time.

Ali called on the young blond boy Andrew had teased earlier, Nick, and his answer appeared in the
window beside Ali. His voice started with a quiver of nerves, but got stronger as he listed, "Nitrogen,
silicon, phosphorus, and potassium are macro-nutrients. Calcium, magnesium-" Nick stumbled through
the rest, getting most of it right.

"Anyone else?" Ali asked.

"Iron," Sharon spoke up.

"But we get iron from the soil," Andrew said.

"We still have to measure it; there's too much in some places," Sharon answered him.

"Quite right. Why is it irregular?" Ali asked.

"Well, here, in the grove, it's pretty even. All Selene's soil came from space stuff, and in some places, the
way you made the world, it didn't work. It came out scattered." Sharon put her hand over her mouth.
Some of the other children tittered.