"Carver, Jeffrey A - Star Rigger 02 - Star Rigger's Way" - читать интересную книгу автора (Carver Jeffrey A)


Carlyle shook his head. He swung the seat pad forward to rest against the
cynthianТs furry spine. The cynthian tensed, fur rippling and eyes flashing
Чthen slowly relaxed. Beside him, the riffmar settled down to wait out
the, session. Carlyle crossed the bridge to his own pilot-rigger station. He
averted his eyes from the sight of the empty alcoves which his crewmates
had once manned; and, resisting a compulsion to relive that horror, he
lowered himself into the seat and rested his neck against the neural-foam
pad. Engage, he thought.
Numbness spread through his body, stealing his hearing and touch. His
eyesight darkened and collapsed. Then his senses sprang from his body
like electrical fire and blossomed out of the starship and into space, into
the rigger-net. Into the Flux. He stretched and looked around.
The view was an atmospheric panorama: the starship floated in a vast,
luminous space. Sculpted lemon clouds drifted in the distance, and russet
layers of smoke twisted outward to form a sea as broad and as deep as the
entire arm of the galaxy. This was the Уsubjective sea,Ф interstellar space
rendered as an airy red and orange-yellow watercolor, with sloping and
intersecting layers, and rivers which ran and twisted at all angles. Some
stars were visible, mostly as flecks of carbon dust adrift in the luminous
space; however, a few stars and their associated nebulae stood out more
clearly, as whorls or discontinuities in the flow of the sea.
The imageЧwhich was partly real and partly a creation of CarlyleТs
imaginationЧwas a good one. It was vivid and bright, and a good
analogue of normal-space. He hoped that Cephean could interpret the
landscape, and more importantly, that the cynthian could follow his lead.
SedoraТs rigger-net sparkled around him and pulsed with energy as he
flexed his limbs. Below the net he sighted his immediate objectiveЧa
dark, channeled intersection of two planes. That was the Reld Current, a
smooth-running river deeply submerged in the multilayered sea of the
Flux. It was a major current in the Flux moving toward SedoraТs
destination, and as safe a place as any for practicing teamwork with
Cephean.
The Reld Current would be easy.
But after the Reld, they had to sail into the Hurricane Flume, and that was
a different sort of current altogether. The Flume was a УchannelФ where

dozens of streams came thundering together, meeting and tangling with
terrible energy. They would reach it in six or seven shipdays. The Flume
was a perilous place to take a ship, but they had to go through; from
within its chaos streamed the upwelling currents to Cunnilus Banks, and
that was where Sedora was bound. In Cunnilus Banks lay the star-havens
and safety. If they could fly on through to Cunnilus Banks, they would be
virtually home free.
But to reach the Banks, they had to go through the Flume; there was no
other way. Carlyle was almost too frightened to think about it. Sedora was
not a one-man or even a two-man ship. She was a four-rigger freighter, a
massive hulk riding on a lone riggerТs back. Sedora had carried a crew of
five; and Carlyle had been the fifth, the extra. But that was before the
accident. Of the original crew, now only he remainedЧwith this alien,