"Cook, Glen - Passage at Arms" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cook Glen)

Passage at Arms
By Glen Cook

"AMMUNITION GONE!" I SHOUT.

Hyper alarm. Another beam from the corvette. Wham! Launch Three ripped off the torus in a hail of glowing fragments. Hope the accelerator path wasn't breached. We wouldn't be able to Climb.

Ghosting.

It lasts only a few minutes. Down we go. Cameras searching, hunting the corvette. What's she doing? Coming after us? There she is. Two thousand some klicks. Accelerating...

"Enjoy," Yanevich says. "The party's just beginning."


1 Welcome Aboard

The personnel carrier lurches through the ruins under a wounded sky. The night hangs overhead like a sadist's boot, stretching out the moment of terror before it falls. It's an indifferent brute full of violent color and spasms of light. It's an eternal moment on a long, frightening, infinite trail that loops back upon itself. I swear we've been around the track a couple of times before.

I decide that a planetary siege is like a woman undressing. Both present the most amazing wonders and astonishments the first time. Both are beautiful and deadly. Both baffle and mes-merize me, and leave me wondering, What did I do to deserve this?

A twist of a lip or a quick chance fragment can shatter the enchantment in one lethal second.

I look at that sky and wonder at myself. Can I really see beauty in that?

Tonight's raids are really showy.

Moments ago the defensive satellites and enemy ships were stars in barely perceptible motion. You could play guessing games as to which were which. You could pretend you were an old-time sailor trying to get a fix and not being able because your damned stars wouldn't hold still.

Now those diamond tips are loci for burning spiders' silk. The stars were lying to us all along. They were really hot-bottomed arachnids with their legs tucked in, waiting to spin their deadly nets. Gigawatt filaments of home-brew lightning come and go so swiftly that what I really see is afterimages scarred on my rods and cones.

Balls of light flare suddenly, fade more slowly. There is no way of knowing what they mean. You presume they are mis-siles being intercepted because neither side often penetrates the other's automated defenses. Occasional shooting stars claw the stratosphere as fragments of missile or satellite die a second death. Everything consumed in this holocaust will be replaced the moment the shooters disappear.

I try to pay attention to Westhause. He's telling me some-thing, and to him it's important. "... instruments are rather primitive, Lieutenant. We get around on a hunch and a prayer." He snickers. It's the sound boys make after telling dirty jokes.

I'm sorry I asked. I don't even remember the question now. I just wanted to get a feel of the man who will be our astrogator. I'm getting more than I bargained for. The fifty-pfennig tour.

That's one of the tricks of telling a good story, Waldo. Before you start talking you identify the parts that are important only to you and separate them from those everybody else wants to hear. Then you leave out the insignificant details only you care about. You hear me thinking at you, Waldo? I suppose not. There aren't many telepaths around.

Now I understand the sly smiles that slit the faces of the others when I started with Westhause. Took them off my hook and put me on the astrogator's.

I shuffle the mental paperwork I did on the officers. Waldo Westhause. Native Canaanite. Reserve officer. Math instructor before he was called to the colors. Twenty-four. An old man to be making just his second patrol. Deftly competent in his specialty, but not well-liked. Talks too much.

He has that eager-to-please look of the unpopular kid who hangs in there, trying. He's too cheerful, smiles too much, and tells too many jokes, all of them poorly. Usually muffs the punchline.

I don't know much of this by direct observation. This is the Old Man's report.

Experienced Climber officers are taut, dour, close-mouthed sphinxes who watch everything with hooded, feline eyes. They all have a little of the cat in them, the cat that sleeps with one cracked eye. They jump at odd sounds. They're constantly grooming. They make themselves obnoxious with their passion for cool, fresh air and clean surroundings. They've been known to maim slovenly wives and indifferent hotel housekeepers.

The carrier heaves. "Damn it! I'll need my spine rebuilt if this keeps on. They can use my tailbone for baby powder now."