"Michael Stackpole "The Bacta War"" - читать интересную книгу автора

for your run. They'll slave their navicomps to yours. Once the cargo has been
de-livered, let them go and get back to base."
"As ordered, sir." Corran let a little chuckle roll from his throat. "Well,
Whistler, this isn't much of a blow to strike against Iceheart, but it's
something. I'll take it as a down payment on what she's going to get later."
II
A cloud of steam rolled toward Corran as the inner door of the thermal lock
opened. He and Ooryl stepped through quickly, anxious to be well away from
frigid conditions that existed back in the hangar. Corran pulled off his gloves,
blew some warmth into his hands, then smiled as a small, balding man approached
them. "You must be Farl Cort."
The smaller man nodded and extended a hand to Corran. "I am. I want to thank you
for your mission here. When we put the word out, I had no reason to expect, you
know, such a generous response so quickly."
"Pleased to meet you, sir." Corran shook his hand, then jerked his head toward
Ooryl. "This is Ooryl Qrygg of Gand, I'm Corran Horn of Corellia."
Farl shook Ooryl's hand, then waved the both of them deeper into the rough-hewn
stone tunnel. "You'll forgive the lack of decoration and refinement, but Halanit
is a fairly small community that is still building to self-sufficiency, so we
have little time to devote to anything that is not utilitarian."
"Ooryl can understand this. You have chosen a difficult world to make your
home."
Corran shook his head at the Gand's understatement.
Halanit was a moon orbiting a gas giant. A thick coat of ice covered the planet,
but beneath the frozen crust, the hot heart of the world heated water and rock
enough to make life sus-tainable. The colonists began creating their community
dur-ing the final days of the Old Republic. They had weathered the Empire and
Rebellion all but unnoticed since the planet produced nothing of use and the
inhabitants numbered just over ten thousand. It was just one more curiosity in a
galaxy full of them, and it would have escaped Corran's notice ex-cept for an
urgent message sent to Coruscant to request ship-ments of bacta.
Farl led them from the tunnel to the edge of a huge chasm that reminded Corran
of Coruscant's artificial can-yons. A hundred meters or so above them a
double-walled transparisteel shield capped the chasm and spread over the area
the diffuse light glowing down through the glacier. On both sides of the chasm
lights shone through viewports carved in the stone and silhouetted the various
bridges across the gulf. In several places, water streamed down between and over
rocks to splash rather beautifully into the chasm's depths.
Corran raised an eyebrow. "This is a little more than simply utilitarian, I
think."
Farl smiled. "This grand vista is the one concession we make to beauty. Standing
here it is easy to see how our fore-fathers envisioned what Halanit would
become. In two gener-ations we have accomplished much, but we are far from our
dream of making this world into a Utopia. And, as pretty as this is, it does
have utilitarian concessions. The double-walled transparisteel cap keeps warmth
in and ice out. The waterfalls are wonderful to look at, but they fill our
reservoir down below and feed our ichthyoculture farms."
, "I concede the point." Corran smiled. "Tell me more about the disease that's
causing you problems."
"It's a virus that mutates quickly and sweeps through the colony." Farl