LE Modesitt Adiamante

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magshuttle drifted in, or before the cyb lander had thundered out of the gray
sky and rumbled down the strip.
I checked the knife and slugthrower on opposite sides of my belt and then
sealed the flitter. As I walked toward the magshuttle through the unsettled
air that mixed comparative warmth and chill, Keiko caught me on the net.
"Coordinator?"
'Yes, Keiko? What's the status on Delta?"
"K'gaio isn't happy about your cannibalizing equipment from three locials, but
she's not complaining too loudly. Elanstan thinks that they might have the
station operational in two to three days."
"That's too long."
"That's what it will take." She paused only minutely before she added, "That's
not why I linked. The cybs are headed out along the lower Aquarius trail."
"With Majer Henslom?" I glanced toward the north. Was there a hint of distant
clouds?
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'Yes, ser."
"Good. I'd like them to get a solid feel for Old Earth."
'You still don't want a screamer?"
"They're big boys," I pointed out.
'Yes, ser." Her disapproval black on black was clear.
She still thought I was wrong, and maybe I was, but I didn't see any changes
in the cyb attitude toward us, and without any changes, they were still going
to try to wipe out us demis, seize our technology, enslave the draffs, and
claim it was all justified by The Flight.
She also thought I was bending the Construct, and perhaps I was doing that,
too, but the Construct didn't say anything about having to protect people from
the ecosystem or the environment. It just said you couldn't provoke, threaten,
or take the first step in a destructive action, no matter what the result
might be. It also said, both fortunately and unfortunately, that you could not
act contrary to the Power Paradigms. That precluded moral compromises, which
was what most aggressors demanded. Working within those parameters was almost
impossible and sometimes it had proved so. That's why more than half the
eleven historical Coordinators hadn't survived their charges.
I stopped by the base of the tower and waited for Lieza to float-taxi the
shuttle to the area just north of the tower. While it might have been a
quarter of the size of the cyb troop landers not that I'd seen any cyb landers
other than troop landers the magshuttle was still big enough to make a
flattened maize cake out of a careless Coordinator.
We still don't believe in all the excessive warning and safety devices that
were another contributing factor that led to the SoshWars. Personally, I
thought that attribution was just Masc propaganda, since men tend to be more
careless. But we have so little left from that time that it's hard to say what
happened. We do know that when safety devices exceed five percent of a
device's resource contribution or weight, then there's either a fault in the
design or in the operator, or both. Basically, if you can't operate
well-designed equipment without safeties on safeties on safeties, you
shouldn't be trying it.
I waited until the magshuttle settled onto the permacrete and the hatch door
slid opened, then climbed up out of the light swirling winds and poked my head
into the cockpit area.
"You cut things close, Coordinator," said Lieza. "There's a big storm coming
in from the north. Won't get where we're going until late in the day." She
paused. "Do you really want to see a prairie dog town?"
"The cyb navigator and naturalist do." "You didn't discourage them?" The
redhead glanced at the screens and then back at me. "Their lander's on final."
"I don't have to, under the Construct." 'You're as bad as a cybschemer." "I
appreciate the compliment." "I didn't quite mean it that way."
"I know," I told her. "I know. I'm going to meet our friends." I ducked out of
the cockpit, stepped out onto the permacrete, and walked northward to where
the lander would stop.
The permacrete vibrated as the cyb lander rolled off the strip and turned back
north toward the tower.
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After it came to a halt, the olive-black metal ramp whined down, and
Subcommander Kemra and a thinner and taller man descended. Both wore informal
greens under the heavy brownish-green winter jackets. Kemra wore the gold
starburst of a subcommander on her collars. Her companion wore no rank
insignia.
"Greetings," I offered. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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