Odnośniki
|
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
letter and closed the shell. Irumclaw s coordinates were stenciled on it for easy reference and she
watched him turn the control knobs. He slid the courier forward on the launch rack. Pausing, he said: I d
like to program this for a sixty-second delay, if you don t mind.
Why?
So we can get back to the conn and watch it take off. To be sure it does, you know.
M-m-m that makes sense. Djana hefted the gun. I m keeping you covered till it s outbound,
understand.
Logical. Afterward, can we both be uncovered?
Be still!
Flandry started the mechanism and returned forward with her. They stared out.
The view was of desolation. Jake lay close by the crater wall, which sloped steeply aloft until its rim
stood fanged in heaven, three kilometers above. Its palisades reached so far that they vanished under the
near horizon before their opposite side became visible. The darkling rock was streaked withwhite, that
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
also covered the floor: carbon dioxide and ammonia snow. This was beginning to vaporize in Wayland s
sixteen-day time of sunlight; fogs boiled and mists steamed, exposing the bluish gleam of eternal water
ice.
Overhead the sky was deep violet, almost black. Stars glittered wanly across most of it, for at this early
hour Mimir s fierce disc barely cleared the ringwall in that area where the latter went behind the curve of
the world. Regin was half a dimness mottled with intricate cloud patterns, half a shining like burnished
steel.
A whitter of wind came in through the hull.
Behind Flandry, Djana said with unexpected wistfulness: When the courier s gone, Nicky, will you hold
me? Will you be good to me?
He made no immediate reply. His shoulder and stomach muscles ached from tension.
The torpedo left its tube. For a moment it hovered, while the idiot pseudo-brain within recognized it was
on a solid body and which way was up. It rose. Once above atmosphere, it would take sights on
beacons such as Betelgeuse and lay a course to Irumclaw.
Except yes! Djana wailed. Flandry whooped. The spark high above had struck. As one point of
glitter, the joined machines staggered across the sky.
Flandry went to the viewscreen and set the magnification. The torpedo had nothing but a parchment-thin
aluminum skin, soon ripped by the flyer s beak while the flyer s talons held tight. The courier had ample
power to shake off its assailant, but not the acumen to do so. Besides, the stresses would have wrecked
it anyway. It continued to rise, but didn t get far before some critical circuit was broken. That killed it.
The claws let go and it plummeted to destruction.
I thought that d happen, Flandry murmured.
The flyer resumed its station. Presently three others joined it. They must ve sensed our messenger, or
been called, Flandry said. No use trying to loft more, eh? We need their energy packs worse for other
things.
Djana, who had stood numbed, cast her gun aside and crumpled weeping into his arms. He stroked her
hair and made soothing noises.
At last she pulled herself together, looked at him, and said, still gulping and hiccoughing: You re glad,
aren t you?
Well, I can t say I m sorry, he admitted.
Y-y-you d rather be dead than
Than a slave?Yes, cliché or not, fraid so.
She considered him for a while that grew. All right, she said most quietly. That makes two of us.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
VI
He had topped the ringwall when the bugs found him.
His aim was to inspect the flyer which had crashed on the outer slope, while Djana packed supplies for
the march. Perhaps he could get some clue as to what had gone wrong here. The possibility that those
patrolling would spot him and attack seemed among the least of the hazards ahead. He could probably
find a cave or crag or crevasse in time, a shelter where they couldn t get at him, on the rugged craterside.
Judiciously applied at short range, the blaster in his hip sheath ought to rid him of them, in view of what
the spitgun had accomplished unless, of course, they summoned so many reinforcements that he ran out
of charge.
Nothing happened. Tuning his spacesuit radio through its entire range of reception, he came upon a band
where there was modulation: clicks and silences, a code reeling off with such speed that in his ears it
sounded almost like an endless ululation, high-pitched and unhuman. He was tempted to transmit a few
remarks on those frequencies, but decided not to draw unnecessary attention to himself. At their altitude,
he might well be invisible to the flyers.
The rest of the available radio spectrum was silent, except for the seethe and crackle of cosmic static.
And the world was silent, except for the moan of wind around him, the crunching of snow and rattling of
stones as his boots struck, the noise of his own breath and heartbeat. The crater floor was rock, ice, drift
of snow and mists, wan illumination that would nonetheless have burned him with ultraviolet rays had his
faceplate let them past. Clouds drove ragged across alien constellations and the turbulent face of Regin.
The crater wall lifted brutal before him.
Climbing it was not too difficult. Erosion had provided ample footing and handholds; and in this gravity,
even burdened with space armor he was lighter than when nude under Terran pull. He adapted to the
changed ratio of weight and inertia with an ease that would have been unconscious had he not
remembered it was going to cause Djana some trouble and thereby slow the two of them down. Other
than keeping a nervous eye swiveling skyward, the chief nuisance he suffered was due to imperfections of
the air renewal and thermostatic units. He was soon hot, sweating, and engulfed in stench.
I ll be sure to fix that before we start!he thought. And give the service crew billy hell when (if) I return.
Momentarily, the spirit sagged in him: What s the use? They re sloppy because the higher echelons are
incompetent because the Empire no longer really cares about holding this part of themarches In my
grandfather s day we were still keeping what was ours, mostly.
In my father s day, the slogan became conciliation and consolidation, which means retreat. Is my
day my very own personal bit of daylight between the two infinite darknesses is it going to turn into
the Long Night?
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plblacksoulman.xlx.pl
|
