Diane Duane - Harbinger 02 by Storm At Eldala

Author:Storm At Eldala [Eldala, Storm At]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-06-05T12:31:13+00:00

*

The computer finished its first set of orbits more quickly than

they had expected, and its soft chime called Gabriel and Enda from

the galley into the sitting room. There the main display was already

projecting a rough map of the planet.

Gabriel was surprised that there was much less water on the planet

than he had thought. The cloud cover was considerable, but it had

shifted while the first imaging run was happening, and the computer

had had time to do some extrapolation on what surface was not

presently showing. The IR confirmed that the sphere rotating in the

air before them had no such world-girdling ocean as Bluefall had,

nothing even as big as Earth’s. What seas appeared were more like

large interconnected inland oceans, with a few mini-seas or huge

lakes scattered among the main continents. What might have been

plate-sliding on the planet’s crust had allowed at least one of these

inland seas to extend a pair of winding straits northward and

southward of itself, some thousands of kilometers each, so that it

seemed to split the continent through which it ran in two.

“Probably going to get pretty good tides up and down those,”

Gabriel said, reaching into the holographic projection to stop its

rotation for a moment and increase the size of the image.

“More to the point,” Enda said, “look at that spot

there—” She indicated a point where the northward-reaching

strait narrowed down particularly tightly. “It will take another

pass before the computer overlays detailed contours on the image, but

if I read the terrain there correctly, that is a downhill plunge— the sea from which the strait runs is higher than the

straits. Tides there may be farther down, but at that spot there

should be a waterfall like nothing anyone has ever seen! A kilometer

high, it might be: perhaps more. I want to take a closer look.”

“You do love your landcapes,” Gabriel said and smiled.

“Why would I not,” Enda said, giving him a look, “after

so many years spent between the worlds and so rarely on them? Permit

me this slight foible after two centuries.”

“I wasn’t arguing. Let’s take her in closer and do our next

imaging run “

That took rather longer, several hours. By the end of that run,

the spherical image that presented itself to Gabriel and Enda in the

sitting room display had much more detail. The inside edges of the

inland seas were massively crevassed with fjords, producing

spectacular cliffs where mountain ranges ran straight into the seas.

Elsewhere, in the center of the main continent, new mountain ranges

fought with old ones for dominance. There seemed to be a lot of

tectonic activity in the middle of the continent, the business of

mountain-building going on actively.

“It is a young planet, I would guess,” Enda said, “and

a good-sized one. Just a shade smaller than Bluefall. Not too long a

day, just over twenty-eight hours. The gravity is lighter.”

“Not so even, though,” Gabriel said. “I’ve been

feeling the ship wiggle every now and then. A gravitational anomaly

or two?”

“Many planets have such, but Gabriel, I think we should run

the temperature assay again. Our results look nothing like those from

the first survey.”

Gabriel agreed. “The average does look more

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