"David Drake - Fallen Angels" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)




"Da." It didn't surprise him anymore. All the younger Floaters spoke Russian as automatically as English.
Russlish? Ever since Peace and Freedom had pooled their resources, everyone was supposed to learn
each other's language; but Alex hadn't gotten past "Ya tebye lyublyu." Hello was "zdravstvuitye." Alex
thought there was something masochistic about speaking a language that strung so many consonants
together. "Be fair, Gordon. If you had ice growing a mile thick in your backyard, wouldn't you want to
move south?"



Gordon mulled it. "Why south?"



He couldn't help the grin. "Never mind. Let me take her again. Hang on, while I kill some velocity.
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Watch what I do and follow me." He stroked the stick gently.



Here we go, baby. You'll love this. Drop the scoop face-on to the wind. Open wide. That's right.
Spread your tail, just for a moment ... Alex realized that his lips were moving and clamped them shut. The
younger ones didn't understand when he talked to the ship. Gordon was having enough trouble feeling the
ship. "Okay," he said finally, "that's done. Take over, again."



Gordon did, more smoothly than before. Alex watched him from the corner of his eye while pretending
to study the instruments. Piranha was a sweet little ship. Alex had flown her once, years before, and
considered her the best of the three remaining scoopers. Maybe that was just Final Trip nostalgia. Maybe
he would have felt the same about whichever ship he flew on his last dip; but he would shed a special tear
for Piranha when they retired her. The scoopers were twenty-two years old already and, while there was
not much wear and tear parked in a vacuum, screaming through the Earth's atmosphere like a white hot
banshee did tend to age the gals a bit. Jaws was already retired. Here was Gordon at nineteen, just
getting started; and the ships at twenty-two were ready to pack it in. Life was funny.



Alex ran a hand lightly across the instrument panel. Scoopships were pretty in an ugly sort of way: lifting
bodies with gaping scoops that made them look like early jet airplanes. They could not land-тАФno landing
gear-тАФbut they didn't dip into the atmosphere deeply enough for that to matter. But they were the
hottest ships around.