标题: 《Periodic Table Neptunium 》作者：- Michael Swanwick 【EPUB】 [打印本页] 作者: zaq 时间: 2013-8-20 09:54 标题: 《Periodic Table Neptunium 》作者：- Michael Swanwick 【EPUB】 Michael Swanwick's Periodic Table of Science Fiction 93 Np Neptunium (237) The Oceans of Neptune Deep in the heart of Neptune's hot oceans, it rains diamonds. Unlike on Earth, there is no distinct boundary on that world between air and sea. The atmosphere just gets thicker and denser until it's a slush of superheated ices. In the far depths of the ocean the pressure is so great that carbon atoms are squeezed out of the dissolved methane, crystallize, and fall. Summergarden, Claimjumper & Ting had mining stations in orbit around Neptune. The mining was accomplished by dropping thermonuclear explosives to the appropriate depths of the ocean and blasting great columns of water into the atmosphere. Some of the diamonds thus recovered were larger than a human heart. So there was a lot at stake when a religious dispute arose with the locals, and they sent a promising junior diplomat-metallurgist named Rennie Wong to straighten things out. Your enterprise is false/sinful/wrong, her skimmer counterpart told Wong. Skimmers were shaped something