The Last Dragon

Начало книги

On the first pass, they missed it.

The earthquake had opened up great red-brown holes in the green African veldt, and the imaging analysts thought it was one of those. But a sharp-eyed photo enhancement analyst named Narvel Buckle saw the black blotches and bands dappling the elongated Halloween-pumpkin orange shape.

"I think it's alive," he muttered to himself. He told no one.

On the second pass, twelve hours later, it had moved three meters. Alive. Definitely.

His curiosity roused. Narvel made another search for it on the third pass. He told the satellite console operator that there were signs of volcanic activity. The government of Gondwanaland, he explained, would pay well for topographic photos of an emerging natural disaster like a volcano.

"They'll throw it into the package with our quake shots and they can double their foreign aid request," he said.

That was all he needed to say. The operator signaled the low-orbit Gaiasat camera to suppress all vegetation and bring up the warm end of the spectrum.

Читать дальше →