"Gordon R. Dickson - The Forever Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

Jim stared at the line in fascination.
"No," he heard himself saying. "It can't be. It's some sort of Laagi trick. They've got a Laagi pilot
aboard=
"Listen," said Mollen. "The probe heard talking inside the ship. And it recorded. Listen-"
Again, there was the faint snap of a stud. A voice, a human

8 I Gordon R. Dickson
voice, singing raggedly, almost absentmindedly to itself, entered the air of the room and rang on Jim's
ears .


. . . en roulant ma boule, roulantroulant ma boule, roulant . . .


The singing broke off and the voice dropped into a mutter of a voice that switched back and forth
between French and English, speaking to itself. Jim, who had all but forgotten the little French he had
picked up as a boy in Quebec, was barely able to make out that the owner of the voice was carrying on a
running commentary on the housekeeping duties he was doing about the ship. Talking to himself after
the fashion of hermits and lonely men.
"All right," said Jim, even while he wondered why he was protesting such strong evidence at all. "Didn't
you say they had the early sernianimate control systems then? They used brain tissue grown in a culture,
didn't they? It's just the control system, parroting what it's heard, following out an early order to bring
the ship back."
"Look again," said Mollen. The view changed once more to a close-up of La Chasse Gallerie. Jim
looked and saw wounds in the dust-scarred hull-the slashing cuts of modern light weapons, refinements
of the ancient laser beam-guns.
`"The ship's already had its first encounter with the Laagi on its way home. It met three ships of a Laagi
patrol-and fought them off."
"Fought them off? That old hulk?" Jim stared into the dimness where Mollen's face should be. "Three
modern Laagi ships?"
"That's right," said Mollen. "It killed two and escaped from the third-and by rights it ought to be dead
itself, but it's still coming, on ordinary drive, evidently. It's not phaseshifting. Now, a control system
might record a voice and head a ship home, but it can't fight off odds of three to one. That takes a living
mind."
A stud clicked. Dazzling overhead light sprang on again and the desk top was only a desk top. Blinking

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in the illumination, Jim saw Mollen looking across at him.
"Jim," said the general, "this is a volunteer mission. That

THE FOREVER MAN / 9

ship is still well in Laagi territory and it's going to be hit again before it reaches the Frontier. Next time
it'll be cut to ribbons, or captured. We can't afford to have that happen. Its pilot, this Raoul Penard, has
got too much to tell us, even beginning with the fact of how he happens to be alive in space at well over
a hundred years of age." He watched Jim closely. "Jim, I'm asking you to take a section of four ships in
to meet. La Chasse Gallerie and bring her out."
Jim stared at him. He found himself involuntarily wetting his lips and stopped the gesture.