"Brin, David - Uplift 02 - Startide Rising" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brin David)

High in the port quarter of Streaker's spherical control room, a psi operator thrashed in her harness. Her flukes made a turmoil of the water, and she cried out in Trinary

* The inky, eight-armed, squid-heads find us!
* Ripping pods of them do battle!

The operator's report confirmed the discovery made by the neutrino detector only minutes before. It was a litany of bad news, related in trance-verse.

* They scream and lust-

To win and capture . . . *

From another station came a calmer bulletin in dolphinaccented Anglic.

"We're getting heavy graviton traffic, Vice-Captain Takkata-Jim. Gravitational disturbances confirm a major battle is forming ,up not far from the planet-t."

The executive officer of the Streaker listened to the report quietly, letting himself drift sideways slightly in the circulating currents of the command center. A stream of bubbles emerged from his blowhole as he inhaled some of the special fluid that filled the ship's bridge.

"Acknowledged," he said at last. Underwater, his voice was a muted buzz. The consonants came out slurred. "How far away is the nearest contact?"

"Five AU, sssir. They couldn't get here for at leasst an hour, even if they came hell-bent."

"Hmmm. Very well, then. Remain in condition yellow. Continue your observationsss, Akeakemai."

The vice-captain was unusually large for a neo-fin, thickbodied and muscular where most of the others were sleek and narrow. His uneven gray coloring and jagged teeth were marks of the Stenos sub-racial line, setting him and a number of others aboard apart from the Tursiops majority.

The human next to Takkata-Jim was impassive as the bad news came. It only confirmed what he had already feared.

"We had better inform the captain, then," Ignacio Metz said. The words were amplified by his facemask into the fizzing water. Bubbles floated away from the tall human's sparse gray hair.

" I warned Creideiki this would happen if we tried eluding the Galactics. I only hope he decides to be reasonable, now that escape's become impossible."

Takkata-Jim opened and closed his foodmouth diagonally, an emphatic nod.

"Yesss, Doctor Metz. Now even Creideiki must recognize that you were right. We're cornered now, and the captain will have no choice but to listen to you."

Metz nodded, gratified. "What about Hikahi's team? Have they been told?"

"I've already ordered the prospecting party back. Even the sled might be too much of a risssk. If the Eatees are already in orbit they might have means to detect it." "Extraterrestrials . . ." Metz corrected, automatically professorial. "The term 'Eatee' is hardly polite."

Takkata-Jim kept an impassive face. He was in command of the ship and its crew while the captain was off watch. Yet the human treated him like a fresh-weaned pupil. It was quite irritating, but Takkata-Jim was careful never to let Metz know how much it bothered him. "Yes, Dr. Metz," he said.

The man went on. "Hikahi's party should never have left the ship. I warned Tom Orley that something like this might happen. Young Toshio's out there . . . and all those crewfen, out of contact with us for so long. It would be terrible if anything happened to them!"

Takkata-Jim felt he knew what was really on Metz's mind. The human was probably thinking about how terrible it would be if any of Streakers crew got themselves killed away from his sight . . . out where he was unable to judge how they behaved for his behavioral and genetic studies. "If only Creideiki had listened to you, sssir," he repeated. "You always have so much to say."

It was a little chancy, but if the human ever saw through Takkata-Jim's respectful mask to the core of sarcasm, he never gave it away.

"Well, it's nice of you to say so, Takkata-Jim. And very perceptive. I know you have many things to do now, so I'll find a free comm line and awaken Creideiki for you. I'll break the news gently that our pursuers have followed us to Kithrup."