In an ordinary storm,
mbt raha, the surface might move in or out a light-year in a decade or so. Such storms were common enough to affect the fortunes of many worlds every year. Much rarer -- perhaps once in a hundred thousand years in the whole galaxy -- there would be a storm where the boundary became seriously distorted,
复件 (21) air max, and where surges might move at a high multiple of light speed. These were the transverse surges that Pham and Blueshell made their scale estimates from. The fastest moved at about a light-year per second, across a distance of less than three lights; the largest were thirty light-years high and moved at scarcely a light-year per day. So what was known of monsters like the thing that had engulfed them? Not much. Third-hand stories in the Ship's library told of surges perhaps as big as theirs, but the quoted dimensions and propagation rates were not clear. Stories more than a hundred million years old are hard to trust; there are scarcely any intermediate languages. (And even if there were, it wouldn't have helped. The new,
复件 (75) air max, dumb version of the OOB absolutely could not do mechanical translation of natural languages. Dredging the library was pointless.) When Ravna complained about this to Pham, he said,
复件 (82) air max1, "Things could be worse. What was the Ur-Partition really?" Five billion years ago. "No one's sure." Pham jerked a thumb at his library display. "Some people think it was a 'super supersurge', you know. Something so big it swallowed the races that might have recorded it. Sometimes the biggest disasters aren't noticed at all -- no one's around to write horror stories." Great. "I'm sorry, Ravna. Honestly, if we're in anything like most past disasters, we'll come out of it in another day or two. The best thing is to plan for things that way. This is like a 'time-out' in the battle. Take advantage of it to have a little peace. Figure out how to get the unperverted parts of Commercial Security to help us." "... Yeah." Depending on the shape of the surge's trailing edge the OOB might have lost a good part of its lead.... But I'll bet the Alliance fleet is completely panicked by all this. Such opportunists would likely run for safety as soon as they're back in the Beyond. The advice kept her busy for another twenty hours, fighting with the half-witted things that claimed to be strategy planners on the new version of the OOB. Even if the surge passed right this instant,
复件 (34) air max2, it might be too late. There were players in this game for whom the surge was not a time-out: Jefri Olsndot and his Tinish allies. It had been seventy hours now since their last contact; Ravna had missed three comm sessions with them. If she were panicked, what must be like for Jefri? Even if Steel could hold off his enemies, time -- and trust -- would be running out at Tines' world. One hundred hours into the surge, Ravna noticed that Blueshell and Pham were doing power tests on the OOB's ramscoop drive.... Some time-outs last forever. .Delete this paragraph to shift page flush CHAPTER 34 The summer hot spell broke for a time; in fact, it was almost chilly. There was still the smoke and the air was still dry, but the winds seemed less driven. Inside their cubby aboard the ship,
MBT Sandals Sapatu, Amdijefri weren't taking much notice of the nice weather. "They've been slow in answering before," said Amdi. "She's explained how the ultrawave --" "Ravna's never been this late!" Not since the winter, anyway. Jefri's tone hovered between fear and petulance. In fact, there was supposed to be a transmission in the middle of the night, technical data for them to pass on to Mr. Steel.