[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.""Hmm! That'll do very well! One thing I must give you, young'un:you have a keen eye on you.Yesterday that mutated winger, now this lot.What I'd really like to find, though, is a thriving root-mass of the spillwayplants.We need some clue to resistance against this poison.Without that I don't know what we'll do."But could any resistance be found to it among the folk? What if the onlypossible adjustment they could make in this region was the one adopted by thenatives, able to feed and breed but nothing more?However, Awb kept such thoughts to himself.After all, the scientists did havebehind them the resources of one of the planet's greatest centers ofknowledge.It was time to take Thilling the first batch of exposed leaves.When hedelivered them, she said, "Drotninch wants you to collect samples of theyellow mud.She's going to load one of the mounts with it.I told her to makesure it's the one furthest from my stuff.""How did yesterday's images come out?" Awb inquired.194THE CRUCIBLE OF TIMEfile:///G|/rah/John%20Brunner%20-%20The%20Crucible%20of%20Time.txt (365 of557) [2/14/2004 12:25:09 AM]file:///G|/rah/John%20Brunner%20-%20The%20Crucible%20of%20Time.txt"What makes you think they came out at all?" Thilling countered sourly, butfanned a quarter-score of them for his inspection.All were weirdly streakedand smeared."What am I looking at?" Awb whispered."Something scarcely any eye has seen before," was the muttered answer."The telescopes they meant to build on Fangsharp Peak were supposed to gatherso much light from such faint sources, no one could possibly sit and registerit.So they planned to make them deliver their light to sheets like these,Page 227ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlusing astrotropes whose growth is controllable to a laqth of a clawide to keepthe image steady.Oh, the effort they've wasted on breeding those 'tropes!""You sound as though the observatory is never going to be built, not here, notanywhere!" Awb cried."Maybe it won't.Because the only time I saw pattemless faults like these onan unexposed image-leaf."She shook her mantle, returning the sheets to their pack."It makescommon-type sense, doesn't it, to grow observatories on mountain-tops?There are four or five such, and I'm an advisor to the one near Chisp.They called me in because even when they're using the finest leaves things gowrong.There are smudges, there are blurs, there are distortions.Often theyspoil a whole dark's work, especially when the telescope is aimed at the MajorCluster.""What causes them?" Awb clenched his claws."We think it's tiny particles of matter blasted out from the new stars formingso far away.And they carry with them something of the terrible stellar heat.At any rate, they burn their way into the leaves.But I neverfile:///G|/rah/John%20Brunner%20-%20The%20Crucible%20of%20Time.txt (366 of557) [2/14/2004 12:25:09 AM]file:///G|/rah/John%20Brunner%20-%20The%20Crucible%20of%20Time.txt imaginedthat something at the bottom of a valley.Hmm?'As though struck by sudden insight, she turned back to the dark-bower, intenton developing the latest sheets."Go get Drotninch's mud-samples," she ordered."But remember to time the nextlot of leaves, too."Awb hastened to comply.At least, down by the dam, he could be sure ofavoiding Phrallet, who still seemed to harbour the suspicion that herheat-sore pads were owed to some sinister plot by Drotninch and the otherscientists.But there was something amiss.He fought the knowledge for a long while, digging up the yellow mud,collecting the rest of the leaves at proper intervals and bringing them to thedark-bower, making himself as useful as he could to everybody.Then, tiny as a falling star viewed through the wrong end of a spyglass, aspark crossed his eye.Puzzled, he looked for more, but found only a red trace across his field ofvision, rather as though he had gazed too long at something very bright butvery narrow, like--Like what? There was nothing it was like at all.Simultaneously he became aware of a sensation akin to an itch, except that itwasn't one.It was just as annoying, but he couldn't work out where it was,other than very vaguely.And whoever heard of an itch in red-level pith,anyway? Determinedly he went on with his work, and shortly wasPage 228ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]