Balance Point Read Online Free PDF

slicer-turned-intelligence expert, came to mind. Fired by her vision of creating a haven for refugees who’d lost everything but their lives, and could yet lose even that, Leia had agreed to work as a liaison between this bickering gang of researchers and SELCORE back on Coruscant. The researchers were happier alone in their labs, or surrounded by a few subservient techs.
    She didn’t put her name on that weekly report. Shewas sick of dealing with Coruscant’s new breed of bureaucrats and their veiled condescension. They could find her if they tried hard enough.
    Leia couldn’t fault Cree’Ar’s techs for their devotion. His most recent breakthrough, cooperating with the distinguished microbiologist Dr. Williwalt, had been a bacterial sludge capable of topfermenting tanks of toxic, pollution-laden water pumped out of the swamps. It digested the leavings of Imperial war factories, leaving rich organic sediment and a gaseous factor they could collect and use for fuel.
    Under Cree’Ar’s supervision, refugees were pouring local-made duracrete into SELCORE-imported forms, dividing sectors of the toxic marsh that Gateway dome surmounted. They’d created six miniature ecosystems, cleansed six half-klick squares of marshland, added tons of cleansed soil-building material, and created Duro’s first arable croplands since the Duros left the surface.
    No wonder Cree’Ar didn’t take time off for staff meetings. He probably was as tired of bureaucracy as Leia was herself. She had wrung a hefty SELCORE budget out of the New Republic’s Advisory Council as her payment for traveling to the Hapes Cluster and begging for the Hapans’ military aid—her own contribution to the Centerpoint disaster.
    Mustn’t think about that. It wasn’t her fault. Wasn’t even Thrackan’s, really. No one had intended to see the Hapan fleet wiped out.
    It all came down to communication. It bothered her that the paired settlements could barely keep the cables intact. How could she supervise a planetary reclamation project, a symbol of rebirth amidst all this death and loss, when no other settlement reported to her scientists on a regular basis?
    Her cereals man turned to the elderly microbiologist.“What we really need,” he suggested, “is a strain of microbes that will digest particulates out of the air. Then we could take down the domes and move out onto the surface.”
    “That’s true,” Leia said dryly. “Until we scatter, we’re sitting flinks for Yuuzhan Vong sharpshooters.”
    The cereals man’s bushy eyebrows shot up.
    How like a scientist, she reflected, so involved in his own project that he’d forgotten the galaxy staring over his shoulder.
    Abbela Oldsong finally finished taking Leia’s datapad around. Adjusting her pale-blue shoulder wrap, she handed the datapad to Leia, who eyed the readout, then saved new information before returning it. As usual, Cree’Ar’s file was longest. All this would go into her weekly burst for SELCORE. She nodded to her aide, who hurried out with the datapad.
    “Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules. Remember,” Leia added somberly, “anything we do at cross-purposes not only slows our effort but wastes the resources SELCORE is willing to send.” Gateway and Thirty-two were already at odds, co-opting each others’ shipments whenever they could. “I’ll see what I can do,” she promised her rangeland manager, “about getting you a freighter load of those inorganics.”
    “Thank you.” Aj Koenes, the Talz, opened one large eye to glare at meteorologist Kolb.
    Leia emerged from the research building, which was an elegant prefab shipped in by SELCORE. Her own office, due south in the cylindrical admin complex, would take a good stiff walk to reach. She wanted to move and think. Basbakhan followed at a distance, happiest when she ignored him. That way, he could keep his mind on his sworn obligation to protect her. She strode downMain Street, as they’d taken to