Anne McCaffrey - Tower & Hive 1 by The Rowan

Author:The Rowan
Language: eng
Format: epub

Our basket's entirely full of eggs.

Eggs?

Eggs, I said. Our biologists say that the beetles were reproducing for 1) a generation-type voyage 2) shortlived workers that had to be periodically replaced, or 3) stocking up for a population explosion on our planet. They want to do an in-depth examination and extrapolation of the life cycle. So don't make an omelette.

Not with frozen eggs. Jeff Wouldn't it be a lot easier and more work- and cost effective to examine everything there?

The Rowan felt tired just thinking about the effort involved. Was

Jeff warning her or complaining?

They 'say' they have to do it in the big Moon labs - to prevent contamination or something. I think they don't want Deneb to get such a juicy contract so early in its career as a colony. We could pay off our Central Worlds' Start-up debt if we'd that kind of investagatory work here.

The Rowan thought about that. The Armed Services, naval and military, regarded Talent with deep suspicion since generally speaking, those of a mind to make war were too prosaic to understand minds which eschewed physical violence. Except, of course, she reminded herself, when they needed an entire squadron dispatched to a far corner of the galaxy. THEN they remembered Talent quite well! She didn't trust bureaucracy either but regulations and rules did reduce chaos to mere confusion. She had come to respect regulations: she would never condone restrictions. Not being of an acquisitive nature, she also did not understand the economics involved: she had all the possessions she needed: she could purchase whatever she liked - within reason - and she was not covetous.

Jeff was another matter. And all that happened to Jeff.

How badly is your colony in debt to Central Worlds? And how HAD

your governors decided to pay it off?

This planet's mineral rich: we're miners and engineers, with enough farmers thrown in to keep us locally supplied.

The Rowan pondered a moment, permitting the peripheral information she had absorbed in that merge to surface to her public mind. She knew he was an engineer in a farming family. She knew he had six brothers and four sisters, since increases in Deneb's population were as important as any other occupation. She knew that his oldest brother and his two older sisters with young families had been wiped out by the aliens, as well as his father and the two youngest siblings: that two younger brothers were medical personnel, that his mother would soon deliver a posthumous child. He had uncles, aunts, and cousins unto the third degree, and half of them had minor Talents. But Deneb, which was not scheduled to achieve full status in Central Worlds nor slated to receive a Prime in the next hundred years, had not organized its Talents until the imminent invasion had forced them into maturity.

Yes, you picked up a lot about us, didn't you, sweeting? Jeff sounded pleased and she felt him stretching... the stretch of someone relieving aching, strained muscles. She sent soothing impulses, phantom hands to knead and smooth.

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