The Ship Who Saved the Worlds by Anne McCaffrey

Author:Anne McCaffrey
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science fiction
ISBN: 0743471717
Publisher: Baen Publishing Enterprises
Published: 2003-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

The velvet envelope absorbed the inertia as it slowed Carialle's velocity down to about a third. Gradually, she dumped more speed as her course destination became more evident. The northern continent appeared over the rim of the planet. The ship was whisked over jungles and rivers and a network of small cities, all looming larger and larger as they dropped. Carialle focused in tightly on the terrain, judging by the angle of descent and speed where the invisible hand would eventually set them down. The datafile she'd gathered of Cridi geography during her spiral told her that ahead on the eastern edge was a broad, flat plain. Most likely the spaceport lay there.

Traveling at only a few thousand kilometers per hour Carialle had time to record more detail of the land below as well as speculate on the welcoming committee. Most definitely the Cridi held all the reins on access and communication. Keff was looking forward to airing his sign language and the smatterings he'd already picked up of cheeps and twitters. Carialle just hoped that she wouldn't have to face one of her worst fears: seeing parts of her original hull being used by humanity's newest allies as chip and dip trays.

The land dished upward into low, rounded, green-backed mountain ranges as a broad river valley spread out beneath her. Carialle's aesthetic sense was pleased by the cities she could see now in greater detail, integrated fully with the rainforests that covered most of the continent. Blue and bronze-metal skyscrapers poked up through clumps of trees that were like giant date palms. Tributaries that eventually led to the great river wound among residential areas, passing under innumerable small bridges. Much of the broad, green plains were uninhabited. Carialle guessed that the Cridi preferred to live in a jungle environment, and leave the open spaces to the ruminants. It was all unimaginably pretty.

"Brace yourselves!" Carialle announced, feeling the restraint around her tighten. Tall Eyebrow and his two companions buckled themselves into the second crash couch, their staring eyes grim as the ship seemed to skim right over the tops of the trees. Carialle widened the view out to give them an accurate picture of their descent. They were actually still hundreds of kilometers above the ground.

Now she could see a landing strip appearing in the extreme range of her sensors. The huge, open field was lined with rows of low buildings. Ragged heaps of undifferentiated junk, half-grown over with vegetation, lay at the edges of the field, but two nearly complete spacecraft stood proudly on the wide, green plain. Perfect miniatures, the graceful spires measured about a sixth of Carialle's height.

"Not much current use," Keff commented. "I guess what Tall Eyebrow said about sparse government funding holds true even ten centuries later."

Their speed lessened again, this time sharply. The passengers surged forward in their crash seats. Keff clutched the arms of his couch and ground his molars together. Forward propulsion was down to a few hundred kilometers per minute, then a few tens, then diminished entirely.

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