"Anderson, Poul - 1966 Flandry 07 - Ensign Flandry" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Poul)

"But who, then, keeps order in your home country?" Ferok wondered. "Why haven't you killed each other off?"
"Um-m-m, hard to explain," Flandry said. "Let me first see if I understand your ways, to compare mine. For instance, you owe nothing to the place where you live, right? I mean, no town or island or whatever is ruled, as a ship isаЕаright? InsteadЧat any rate in this part of the worldЧthe females are organized into associations like the Sisterhood, whose members may live anywhere, which even have their special languages. They own all important property and make all important decisions through those associations. Thus disputes among males have little effect on them. Am I right?"
"I suppose so. You might have put it more politely."
"Apology-of-courage is offered. I am a stranger. Now among my peopleЧ"
A shout fell from the crow's nest. Ferok whirled and pointed his telescope. The crew sprang to the starboard rail, clustered in the shrouds, and yelled.
Dragoika bounded from the captain's cabin under the poop. She held a four-pronged fish spear in one hand, a small painted drum beneath her arm. Up the ladder she went, to stand by the quartermistress at the wheel and look for herself. Then, coolly, she tapped her drum on one side, plucked the steel strings across the recessed head on the other. Twang and thump carried across noise like a bugle call. All hands to arms and battle stations!
"The vaz-Siravo!" Ferok shouted above clamor. "They're on us!" He made for the deckhouse. Restored to discipline, the crew were lining up for helmets, shields, byrnies, and weapons.
Flandry strained his eyes into the glare off the water. A score or so blue dorsal fins clove it, converging on the ship. And suddenly, a hundred meters to starboard, a submarine rose.
A little, crude thing, doubtless home-built to a Merseian designЧfor if you want to engineer a planet-wide war among primitives, you should teach them what they can make and do for themselves. The hull was greased leather stretched across a framework of some undersea equivalent of wood. Harness trailed downward to the four fish which pulled it; he could barely discern them as huge shadows under the surface. The deck lay awash. But an outsize catapult projected therefrom. Several dolphin-like bodies with transparent globes on their heads and powerpacks on their backs crouched alongside. They rose onto flukes and flippers; their arms reached to swing the machine around.
"Dommaneek!" Dragoika screeched. "Dommaneek Falan-daree! Can you man ours?"
"Aye, aye!" The Terran ran prow-ward. Planks rolled and thudded beneath his feet.
On the forward deck, the two females whose duty it was were trying to unlimber the gun. They worked slowly, getting in each other's way, spitting curses. There hadn't yet been time to drill many competent shots, even with a weapon as simple as this, a rifle throwing 38 mm. chemical shells. Before they got the range, that catapult mightЧ
"Gangway!" Flandry shoved the nearest aside. She snarled and swatted at him with long red nails. Dragoika's drum rippled an order. Both females fell back from him.
He opened the breech, grabbed a shell from the ammo box, and dogged it in. The enemy catapult thumped. A packet arced high, down again, made a near miss and burst into flame which spread crimson and smoky across the waves. Some version of Greek fireЧundersea oil wellsЧFlandry put his eye to the range finder. He was too excited to be scared. But he must lay the gun manually. A hydraulic system would have been too liable to breakdown. In spite of good balance and self-lubricating bearings, the barrel swung with nightmare slowness. The Seatrolls were rewinding their catapultаЕаbefore Andromeda, they were fast! They must use hydraulics.
Dragoika spoke to the quartermistress. She put the wheel hard over. Booms swung over the deck. The jib flapped thunderous until crewmales reset the sheets. The Archer came about. Flandry struggled to compensate. He barely remembered to keep one foot on the brake, lest his gun travel too far. Bet those she-cats would've forgotten. The enemy missile didn't make the vessel's superstructure as intended. But it struck the hull amidships. Under this oxygen pressure, fire billowed heavenward.
Flandry pulled the lanyard. His gun roared and kicked. A geyser fountained, mingled with splinters. One draught fish leaped, threshed, and died. The rest already floated bellies up. "Got him!" Flandry whooped.
Dragoika plucked a command. Most of the crew put aside their weapons and joined a firefighting party. There was a hand pump at either rail, buckets with ropes bent to them, sails to drag from the deckhouse and wet and lower.
Ferok, or someone, yelled through voices, wind, waves, brawling, and smoke of the flames. The Seatrolls were coming over the opposite rail.
They must have climbed the nets. (Better invent a different warning gadget, raced through Flandry's mind.) They wore the Merseian equipment which had enabled their kind to carry the war ashore elsewhere on Starkad. Waterfilled helmets covered the blunt heads, black absorbent skinsuits kept everything else moist. Pumps cycled atmospheric oxygen, running off powerpacks. The same capacitors energized their legs. Those were clumsy. The bodies must be harnessed into a supporting framework, the two flippers and the fluked tail control four mechanical limbs with prehensile feet. But they lurched across the deck, huge, powerful, their hands holding spears and axes and a couple of waterproof machine pistols. Ten of them were now aboardаЕаand how many sailors could be spared from the fire?
A rifle bullet wailed. A Seatroll sprayed lead in return. Tigeries crumpled. Their blood was human color.
Flandry rammed home another shell and lobbed it into the sea some distance off. "Why?" screamed a gunner.
"May have been more coming," he said. "I hope hydrostatic shock got 'em." He didn't notice he used Anglic.
Dragoika cast her fish spear. One pistol wielder went down, the prongs in him. He scrabbled at the shaft. Rifles barked, crossbows snapped, driving his mate to shelter between the deckhouse and a lifeboat. Then combat ramped, leaping Tigeries, lumbering Seatrolls, sword against ax, pike against spear, clash, clatter, grunt, shriek, chaos run loose. Several firefighters went for their weapons. Dragoika drummed them back to work. The Seatrolls made for them, to cut them down and let the ship burn. The armed Tigeries tried to defend them. The enemy pistoleer kept the Kursovikian rifle shooters pinned down behind masts and bollardsЧneutralized. The battle had no more shape than that.
A bullet splintered the planks a meter from Flandry. For a moment, panic locked him where he stood. What to do, what to do? He couldn't die. He mustn't. He was Dominic, himself, with a lifetime yet to live. Outnumbered though they were, the Seatrolls need but wreak havoc till the fire got beyond control and he was done. Mother! Help me!
For no sound reason, he remembered Lieutenant Danielson. Rage blossomed in him. He bounded down the ladder and across the main deck. A Seatroll chopped at him. He swerved and continued.
Dragoika's door stood under the poop. He slid the panel aside and plunged into her cabin. It was appointed in barbaric luxury. Sunlight sickled through an oval port, across the bulkhead as the ship rolled, touching bronze candlesticks, woven tapestry, a primitive sextant, charts and navigation tables inscribed on parchment. He snatched what he had left here to satisfy her curiosity, his impeller, buckled the unit on his back with frantic fingers and hooked in his capacitors. Now, that sword, which she hadn't taken time to don. He re-emerged, flicked controls, and rose.
Over the deckhouse! The Seatroll with the machine pistol lay next it, a hard target for a rifle, himself commanding stem and stern. Flandry drew blade. The being heard the slight noise and tried awkwardly to look up. Flandry struck. He missed the hand but knocked the gun loose. It flipped over the side.
He whirred aft, smiting from above. "I've got him!" he shouted. "I've got him! Come out and do some real shooting!"
The fight was soon finished. He used a little more energy to help spread the wet sail which smothered the fire.

After dark, Egrima and Buruz again ruled heaven. They cast shivering glades across the waters. Few stars shone through, but one didn't miss them with so much other beauty. The ship plowed northward in an enormous murmurous hush.
Dragoika stood with Flandry by the totem at the prow. She had offered thanks. Kursovikian religion was a paganism more inchoate than any recorded from ancient TerraЧthe Tigery mind was less interested than the human in finding ultimate causesЧbut ritual was important. Now the crew had returned to watch or to sleep and they two were alone. Her fur was sparked with silver, her eyes pools of light.
"Our thanks belong more to you," she said softly. "I am high in the Sisterhood. They will be told, and remember."
"Oh, well." Flandry shuffled his feet and blushed.
"But have you not endangered yourself? You explained what scant strength is left in those boxes which keep you alive. And then you spent it to fly about."
"Uh, my pump can be operated manually if need be."
"I shall appoint a detail to do so."
"No need. You see, now I can use the Siravo powerpacks. I have tools in my pouch for adapting them."
"Good." She looked awhile into the shadows and luminance which barred the deck. "That one whose pistol you removedЧ" Her tone was wistful.
"No, ma'm," Flandry said firmly. "You cannot have him. He's the only survivor of the lot. We'll keep him alive and unhurt."
"I simply thought of questioning him about their plans. I know a little of their language. We've gained it from prisoners or parleys through the ages. He wouldn't be too damaged, I think."
"My superiors can do a better job in Highport."
Dragoika sighed. "As you will." She leaned against him. "I've met vaz-Terran before, but you are the first I have really known well." Her tail wagged. "I like you."
Flandry gulped. "IаЕаI like you too."
"You fight like a male and think like a female. That's something new. Even in the far southern islandsЧ" She laid an arm around his waist. Her fur was warm and silken where it touched his skin. Somebody had told him once that could you breathe their air undiluted, the Tigeries would smell like new-mown hay. "I'll have joy of your company."
"Um-m-mаЕаuh." What can I say?
"Pity you must wear that helmet," Dragoika said. "I'd like to taste your lips. But otherwise we're not made so differently, our two kinds. Will you come to my cabin?"
For an instant that whirled, Flandry was tempted. He had everything he could do to answer. It wasn't based on past lectures about taking care not to offend native mores, nor on principle, nor, most certainly, on fastidiousness. If anything, her otherness made her the more piquant. But he couldn't really predict what she might do in a close relationship, andЧ
"I'm deeply sorry," he said. "I'd love to, but I'm under aЧ" what was the word?Ч"a geas."
She was neither offended nor much surprised. She had seen a lot of different cultures. "Pity," she said. "Well, you know where the forecastle is. Goodnight." She padded aft. En route, she stopped to collect Ferok.