The Coming of the Quantum Cats (Frederik Pohl) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги (ч. 9)

There was a bad time in eastern Iowa. Farmers who through adversity were used to flood, drought, and legislative tinkering with their price supports woke to a new disaster. From Muscatine to the edge of the Quad Cities, twenty miles and more, the sky was covered with a gi'een-gray, oily cloud. When the cloud settled, it blanketed three-quarters of a million acres of prime corn, soy, and mung with a carpet of locusts. Locusts! No one in Iowa had ever seen a locust swarm before! And when they rose to fly on, only stubble remained.