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

Rachel tried to cover for Sharon. "It wasn't a mistake, it couldn't be helped. Some asteroids and moons
have more iron than others. Besides, everything else varies too. We have to watch places where there is
too much iron-it burns the roots. We always survey the soil before we plant, especially in the field."
Rachel grinned at the younger girl. "And you're right, iron is important. There has to be some, and there
can't be too much."

"But every nutrient is like that," Andrew said. "They all have to be just right."

Sharon didn't answer. Andrew had succeeded in making Rachel look foolish too. Rachel squirmed,
furious for the second time that morning. She couldn't show her anger-it might make her fail. It was easy
to earn Council's disapproval. She looked over at Sharon, who gave her a beseeching glance. Rachel
smiled, the only help she could afford to offer.

Ali shifted her questioning to Andrew, perhaps to give Sharon time to recover her composure. Andrew
delivered a well-organized example of the way the tiny measuring pods communicated wirelessly with
one another, collecting and sending information about soil, atmosphere, and any plants they were
attached to. The pods were ubiquitous-data flowed from all over Selene to be gathered up at Aldrin and
forwarded to space, to the carrier ship John Glenn. Ali pushed him quietly, eventually questioning past
his ability to answer confidently.

Question and answer had been running for an hour now. Rachel was so mad at Andrew she could spit.
He'd monopolized all of the best questions. Some of her answers were better, but Andrew didn't give her
time to say them. And what Andrew hadn't answered, quiet Harry had answered perfectly. Rachel
couldn't smack Andrew in front of Council, and she couldn't seem to think faster either. Ursula hadn't
done too well; Rachel wanted to prod her out of her shyness. Things were not going well.

Finally Ali looked over at the two girls and asked them, "Why do we plant in this grove with our hands
and not with machines?"

Andrew started to talk, but Ali pushed an open hand toward him to warn him off, and he closed his
mouth again, fidgeting. Rachel glanced at Gabriel-they'd talked about this once on a walk. She licked her
lips. "So that we get a feel for the plants and see them as living parts of an ecosystem. If we touch the
plants, and know them, we can remember that later, when we are using mostly machines." She looked at
Ursula. "Ursula knows this too."

Ursula looked gratefully back at Rachel and narrowed her eyes, plunging in bravely. "When we work by
hand we know what the soil feels like. We know what the tree feels like." Ursula hesitated a second.
"And it's ours, so we're proud of our work here."

Ursula ran out of words and elbowed Rachel, who said, "Terraforming Ecology is a form of engineering.
Gabriel says engineers need to do things themselves to understand how to avoid mistakes."

Ali broke in, "Do you think that's true?"

Rachel stayed quiet for a moment. "Yes. I think we'll know the plants better. I'll always know the ones I
planted here, and if I want to keep that, I'll stay in some physical contact even when-if-I pass and work
on planting machines."

Andrew interrupted, "Besides, who'd want machines tearing up our soil? They were already here once:
this whole grove has been prepared with the right basic soil. Why use machines where you don't need