Word: piped
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Engineer Roman Kuzovatkin turns a tap on a loop of steel pipe that juts from a snowbank near Samotlor. A spurt of fine black oil sprays the surrounding drifts. Moments later, a helicopter whips up a snowstorm as it takes off to ferry equipment to construction crews that are dynamiting the frozen earth to lay new pipelines. Farther to the north in the Nadym gas fields hard by the Arctic Circle, the long nights are thunderously lit by giant flares of blazing gas. It will soon light Western Europe and may one day heat New York. Two thousand miles...
Because he stutters badly, Hoagland does most of the listening. He greatly admires self-reliance and know-how: the man who minces lead pipe to make his own buckshot and carries bottle caps filled with wax to kindle his fire on wet nights, the man who keeps his canoe upright in the rapids and knows which ferns to eat for breakfast. No historical fact or weathered detail seems insignificant in Hoagland's descriptions of worlds that are fading fast. Moose hearts as big as cannon balls and bears that love to eat the Day-Glo paint off trail markers...
...call ... (Harris leaned back in his padded leather chair.)... We've been working on that reapportionment, and I think we've got a plan now that will make everyone happy. I'd like you to stop by and take a look at it ... (Harris leaned forward, and cleaned his pipe with a letter opener.) What's that? Oh, I see ... (Harris filled his pipe with tobacco, lit it, and leaned back again.)... What you want is treasurer. There's no money in it, but look at the last four treasurers. It looks like a good path to the bench ... Yeah...
This he blocked from his mind. "I'm concerned with the nuts and bolts of elections," he said, puffing thoughtfully on his pipe. "My job is to take Lawrence Williams as he is and make him look as good as possible... I don't concern myself with the issues. I'm a party...
...which Don Juan spoke of as an implacable female presence. The third was humito, "the little smoke"?a preparation of dust from Psilocybe mushrooms that had been dried and aged for a year, and then mixed with five other plants, including sage. This was smoked in a ritual pipe, and used for divination...