"Chalker, Jack L - Quintara 2 - The Run to Chaos Keep" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)
PRINTING HISTORY
Ace hardcover edition / May 1991 Ace paperback edition / May 1992
All rights reserved. Copyright й 1991 by Jack L. Chalker.
Cover art by Darrell Sweet.
ISBN: 0-441-69348-2
Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.
The name "ACE" and the "A" logo are trademarks belonging to Charter Communications, Inc.
e-book ver. 1.0
For the late
Catherine "C.L."Moore,
who showed us how it's done
over fifty years ago.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
When writing the three volumes of The Quintara Marathon, I immediately ran into the problem of representing nonverbal communications. In the book we have various characters and creatures, some of whom communicate in whole or in part directly with the mind of another. When added to internalized dialogue, this began to make for a page that was both confusing and typographically unwieldy.
The late George O. Smith, when faced with this problem, decided that the easiest way to resolve this was to use a different dialogue delimiter so that the reader would instantly know which communications were verbal and which were mind-to-mind. I have often marveled that others never took up this practice, but it seems practical here and throughout The Quintara Marathon. Thus, to alert you, text delimited by opposing carets, or "arrows" as they are sometimes called (e.g.
Jack L. Chalker
THE DEMONS AT RAINBOW BRIDGE
AN ANGUISHED, GHOSTLY SPECTRE TRAPPED IN Hell had summoned them to this remote place, and, worst of all, it was a collect call.
"All ships . . . any ships . . . Exchange registry . . . This is Research Vessel Wabaugh. Coordinates based on special map frontier zone one one four eight two stroke five. Coordinates are Rainbow Bridge. Send assistance fast. They're all dead. They're all in there with the demons and they're all dead. Only one left. Can't leave. Approach with extreme caution! Power adequate for maintenance only. Any Exchange registry. Approach with caution. Demons at Rainbow Bridge! Coordinates ..."
The blue and green world below them looked so tranquil, so placid, that it seemed as if nothing could disturb its quiet beauty, but they were an Arm of the gods of the Mizlaplan, a holy gathering in Inquisition assembly, and they had already risked much to get this far.
Although, by treaty, the Mizlaplanian survival suit was officially categorized as "gold in color," that was simply to get around different racial perceptions of color. The suits were not shiny, but rather dull, more a darker shade of yellow with just a bit of orange than golden. The form-fitted suits, customized for each individual, differed only in detail from those used by the other two great empires, the Mycohl and the Exchange, but for color, of course. Captain Gun Roh Chin, master of the Mizlaplanian freighter Faith of Gorusu, graduate of the Naval Institute, now an Instrument of the Arm of the Holy Inquisition, looked at them all in their fairly bright suits and wished that the diplomats had insisted on charcoal; he felt like a beacon in the damned thing, or a very good target. They had been forced into this desolate and isolated frontier sector of space on orders; to get here, they had been forced to cross Mycohlian space at its narrowest point, and, narrow or not, were two empires away from home and doubly illegal.
Even though Chin timed his drop and his thrust perfectly, it took him close to thirty precious minutes to maneuver up to the Exchange ship, and, when he did, he found it with beacons and running lights off and no sign of power.
"It doesn't look damaged," Krisha the Holy Mendoro, the dark beauty who was both priestess and Arm security officer, noted, trying to see what detail she could. "I am telepathically scanning, and I get nothing at all."
"Nor I,'' added Savin the Holy Peshwa, who was a powerful empath. Empaths often received things at far greater distance than telepaths, although, in both cases, they weren't expecting to feel or monitor anything intelligible -- just some sign that there was life aboard. "It feels like a dead ship."
Savin was a Mesok, a huge humanoid creature with a hard, rubbery reptilian skin, nasty yellow eyes like some giant cat's, with big, bony hands whose fingers and toes ended in suckers at their tips, and big, bony, dish-like ears that seemed glued onto the top of his angular head. He was a fearsome-looking one, all green and black, with enormous teeth that showed even with his mouth closed, and his very sight was intimidating as a vision of Hell. There wasn't one of them who didn't give prayers of thanks every time they looked at him that he was on their side.
Manya the Holy Szin looked up from her instrument cluster. "It is a dead ship," she told them. "No power levels at all. Even the emergencies have been drained. Only the broadcast emergency transponder, which is opposite the planet's surface, shows any energy at all. It is inert. No life forms, no internal power. We will have to cut through an airlock just to board her."
Manya, the science officer of the Arm, was a Gnoll -- short, squat, barrel-chested gnomes with snake-like forked tongues, huge pointed ears that stuck up on both sides of their heads, and with gray skin like an elephant's hide and twice as tough. But they and Terrans could eat the same foods, tended to share a liking for sweets, had similar biological systems, and weren't as far apart in the evolutionary way as they seemed on the surface.
"You're certain of that, Manya?" Morok pressed her. "No life, no internal power? It can't just be shielded?"
Morok the Holy Ladue was tall, frail-looking, and quite bird-like in appearance, his tiny hands at the end of the long, leathery wings that could actually be used to fly -- in the right gravity and environment -- and the leader of the Arm. Still, there was also something reptilian about him, at least subjectively to Terrans, and this came across in his constant cool, seemingly dispassionate manner.
' 'No. If there were any attempts at shielding of .that sort then the shields themselves would register," the science officer replied. "There is nothing alive aboard. Even its computers are out."
"Somebody survived whatever it was," Krisha noted. "Somebody sent that message along with the distress beacon."
' 'Yes, but how long ago?'' Gun Roh Chin asked her. ' 'Many days, certainly. Perhaps longer. With life support down, they might not have been able to find a way to keep going. They might have lost hope after nobody came. They might have gone mad.".
Savin's huge eyes scanned the surface of the research vessel. "Holiness -- the escape pods are still intact as well. Not a one has been fired. Not even -the ones away from the surface that show some trickle charge -- enough to use manually."
"Yes? So?" Morok was more spooked than irritated. They all were.
"Holiness -- at least a few near the transponder are almost certainly usable, power drain or not. They weren't used. The first implication is that whatever happened here happened very quickly and to everyone. Everyone but one. He, she, it -- whatever -- survived, possibly by being in the only place near the transponder that's still active, and was possibly only knocked out when everyone and everything else went They would likely not have a huge crew on this sort of ship anyway. That person is not aboard now, or, if aboard, died there. Died there right next to a getaway system. Or got away without using the pods."
Gun Ron Chin nodded. "The pod would have taken him to the nearest survivable planet We assume that they wouldn't assign races to this who couldn't survive down there, since the climate, atmosphere, and the like have measured safe for us. It Would have taken our survivor to the surface, with enough supplies and shelter for a month or more. That means ..."
"It means," Krisha finished for him, "that he chose to die, either horribly or by his own hand, rather than go down to that world."
"There is a shuttle missing," Morok noted. "I saw its empty nesting bay on the underside."
"Within range of whatever it was, though," Savin pointed out "I would assume that the shuttle was on the surface with the main scientific party. Since whatever killed this ship came from down there, I think it highly unlikely that anyone mere risked flying up here to get that survivor off. Or was able to."
"Do you want to board her?" Chin asked them.
"Yes," responded Morok, "but not now. If there is no life aboard, we must first determine if there is still life below."
"Well, there is surely something below," Manya commented. "The energy pattern on the ship clearly indicates that it took a jolt of almost inconceivable power, pure energy, from a point below on the surface. It shorted out all the systems, shorted the computers, and most likely electrocuted almost everyone. Our survivor was probably the only one in some sort of insulated situation and so did not get the full jolt."
"If I am to be electrocuted, I should rather know who is doing it to me, and why," Morok said in a flat, hollow tone.
"Take it down, Captain. Land at their camp below. Everyone check suits and weapons. Yes, again. Now!"
It wasn't difficult to find the camp below. It was a world covered with trees and seas, but the camp appeared to be the only sign of any animal life on it. There were a number of temporary, prefabricated structures down mere as well as parabolic communications antennae all of which were easy to spot
"A standard scientific field station, not much different than the way we would do it," Manya told them. "The only thing I cannot understand is that large -- house, or building, or whatever it is. It is of a totally different design than the others and looks quite permanent In fact it almost looks as if it were tooled from a single, unimaginably huge quartz-like crystal."
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