"Anderson, Poul - 1964 Nicholas Van Rijn 02 - Trader to the Stars 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Poul)

This is a yacht, not a warship."
"Hokay, we must continue in hyperdrive. How slow
must we go, to make sure we come within calling distance
of Freya before our engine bums out?"
"One-tenth of top speed. It'd take us six months."
"No, my captain friend, not so long. We never reach
Valhalla star at all. The Adderkops find us first."
"I suppose so. We haven't got six months' stores aboard
anyway." Torrance stared at the deck. "What occurs to
me is, well, we could reach one of the nearby stars.
There just barely might be a planet With an industrial
civilization, whose people could eventually be taught to
make the circuits we need. A habitable planet, at least-
maybe..."
"Nie!" Van Rijn shook his head till the greasy black
ringlets swirled about his shoulders. "All us men and one
woman for life on some garbagey rock where they have
not even wine grapes? I'll take an Adderkop shell and go
out like a gentleman, by damn!" The steward appeared.
"Where you been snoozing? Beer, With God's curses on
you! I need to make thinks! How you expect I can
think with a mouth like a desert in midsummer?"
Torrance chose his words carefully. Van Rijn would
have to be reminded that the captain, in space, was the
final boss. And yet the old devil must not be antagonized,
for he had a record of squirming between the horns of
dilemmas. "I'm open to suggestions, sir, but I can't take
the responsibility of courting enemy attack."
Van Rijn rose and lumbered about the cabin, fuming
obscenities and volcanic blue clouds. As he passed the
shelf where St. Dismas stood, he pinched the candles out
in a marked manner. That seemed to trigger something
in him. He turned about and said, "Ha! Industrial civiliz-
ations, ja, maybe so. Not only the pest-begotten Adder-
cops ply this region of space. Gives some chance per-
haps we can come in detection range of an un-beat-up
ship, nie? You go get Yamamura to jack up our detector
sensitivities till we can feel a gnat twiddle its wings back
in my Djakarta office on Earth, so lazy the cleaners are.
Then we go off this direct course and run a standard naval
search pattern at reduced speed."
"And if we find a ship? Could belong to the enemy, you
know."
"That chance we take."
"In all events, sir, we'll lose time. The pursuit will gain
on us while we follow a search-helix. Especially if we
spend days persuading some nonhmuan crew who've never
heard of the human race, that we have to be taken to Val-
halla immediately if not sooner."
"We bum that bridge when we come to it. You have