"Gordon R. Dickson & Harry Harrision - Lifeship" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

wreckage grew before them, enlarging until it filled the screenтАФ until it
appeared they were driving down into it. But the smooth play of the
Albenareth's six long fingers on the control console keys controlled the
lifeship's motion, sent it drifting inward, slipping past jagged fangs of
steel that swam into view in the lifeship's forward viewscreen. Suddenly,
there was a smooth, unscarred section of hull before them and they clanged
against it. Magnetic clamps thudded as they locked on, and the lifeship was
moved spasmodically, with loud grating sounds, as it was orientated with
something on the hull. Then the alien rose from the controls, turned, and
strode back to undog the airlock. The inner door ground openтАФthen the outer
one.

There was no rush of air, for they were sealed tight to another airlockтАФone
on the spaceliner. The outer door of this lock, chilled from space and
white-frosted with condensation, opened a crack, then stopped. The Albenareth
wrapped a fold of his smocklike garment around his hands, seized the open
edge, and pulled strongly until it opened all the way. Smoke haze beyond it
cleared briefly to reveal another airlock and the gaunt figures of two more
Albenareth.

There was a rapid conversation between the three aliens. Giles could make out
no expression on the creased and wrinkled dark skin of their faces. Their
eyes were round and unreadable. They punctuated their words with snapping
gestures of their threefingered hands, opening and closing the mutually
opposed fingers. Suddenly, their talk ceased. Both the first Albenareth and
one of the others reached out to touch the fingertips of both their hands,
briefly, with those of the third, who stood deepest within the lock.

The two closer aliens stepped back into the lifeship. The one they left did
not move or try to follow them. Then, as the airlock door began to close, all
three began to laugh at once, together, in their high-pitched, clattering
laughter, until the closing door separated them. Even then, the captain and
the alien beside him continued to laugh as the lifeship moved away from their
shipmate in the spaceliner wreckage. Only slowly did their laughter die,
surrounded by the staring silence of the arbite passengers. Shock at the
sudden disaster fatigue, and smoke inhalation, or perhaps all these things,
combined to numb the watching humans as they stared with reddened eyes at the
image of the burning ship, pictured on the stemview screen in the front of
the lifeship. The image dwindled, until it was no more than a star among all
the other points of light on the screen.

Finally, it winked from sight. When it was gone, the tall alien who had first
entered the lifeship and driven it outward from the spaceliner rose from the
control seat, turned, and came back to face the humans, leaving the other
alien doing some incomprehensible work with part of the control panel. The
first Albenareth halted an arm's length from Giles, and raised one long, dark
finger, the middle of the three on his hand.

"I am Captain Rayumung." The finger moved around to point back at the second