"Avatar 2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Avatar)

on original estimates, but if nothing else went wrong with their engines,

they'd now reach DS9 in just over fourteen hours. Picard expected that the
commander would take a shuttle to Starbase 375, to whatever new assignment
awaited him, once they'd concluded their business at the station.

Vaughn smiled back at him, but seemed distracted. "Kind of you to ask, Jean-
Luc, but I'm not actually hungry. It's a little too early for me . . . or
late, rather."

Picard hesitated, not sure if Vaughn was asking him to leave or inviting
further conversation. The man he'd known as Elias Vaughn had always kept his
own counsel, not secretive so much as reserved, although he surely had his
secretsЧa Starfleet officer with an eighty-year career in strategic operations
had probably forgotten more clandestine information than Picard would ever
know.

But after his Orb experience, Elias had seemed renewed in spirit, an
enthusiasm and openness to his manner that hadn't existed before. He'd
described to Picard a sense of rediscovered purpose, and he had fairly glowed
with it. Deanna had equated it to a spiritual awakening of sorts, a shift of
his fundamental perceptions.

Vaughn was gazing down at the ark, the lines of his face now drawn into an
unreadable mask. Picard continued to be intrigued by Vaughn's change in
manner, but he wasn't one to pry; he had just decided to leave when the
commander spoke, his strong voice soft in the still air.

"Strange things happen, Jean-Luc. Things that can't be explained away. That
you know will probably never be explained."

Picard nodded. "I agree."

Vaughn grinned, and shook his head as he looked up from the ark. "It's nice to
meet another realist. As long as we're agreeing on philosophical matters, I
have a hypothetical question for you, a kind of moral dilemma."

Picard folded his arms. "How hypothetical?"

"Completely," Vaughn said. "Say that a high-ranking officer on your ship had
received classified information about upcoming circumstances."

Picard nodded. Before they'd lost their subspace array, the commander had
received several coded transmissions while on board.

"Say that the information regarded a space station, that your ship might now
be headed for," Vaughn said, looking down at the ark again. "And say that this
officer believes that if communications were working, you would have heard a
declassified version by now. Unfortunately, you won't have the sub-space
relays operational before you get to the station. And the officer doesn't know