"Duane, Diane - Tos - Spock's World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duane Diane)

Jim smiled and said nothing, just sipped his
whiskey. Much to his annoyance, the thick, brown
black brew called stout had been one Irish
taste he had been unable to acquire: to him, it
tasted like roofing tar. He had heard this particular
argument before; and the worse arguments about brands of stout
sometimes progressed almost to physical violence before
Ronan made it plain that such was not permitted, and
besides, it would spill the drinks.
"And what's that you're drinking?" Erevan said.
"Whiskey," said Jim.
"Oh, now, what are you drinking that down here for?"
Jim was opening his mouth to laugh when in the pocket
of his jacket, slung over the back of his chair, his
communicator went off. It had been so long since
he'd heard it that the sound startled him almost as much as
it did Riona and Erevan. "Phone," he
said, as casually as he could, and dug around behind him in
the pocket among the car's code plate and the loose
change, till he came up with the communicator and
flipped it open. "Kirk here," he said.
"Spock here, Captain, was and out of the corner of
his eye Jim noted with mild amusement that Riona
and Erevan were eyeing one another, for here was another
name they knew from the newscasts. "Are you busy?"
"Chatting with friends. Do you want to call me back?"
"No need: this news will be quite public shortly,
if indeed it is not public now. I would suggest
to you, Captain, that all liberties are about to be
canceled. I thought you might appreciate an advance
warning."
"Noted. What's going on?"
"A vote was taken this morning, and Vulcan has
decided to call the Referendum. My presence will be
required there, and I would strongly suspect that the
Enterprise wilt be sent there as well, to . . .
reinforce the planet's memory of favors done it
in the past by the Federation. was Jim was still for a moment.
This particular problem had been a long time brewing .
. . and he had thought something might happen to make it
come to a head fairly soon. At times like this, he
thought, l realty hate being right. "We have
no orders yet?"
"No, sir. But I judge the probability of the
imminent arrival of such orders to be ninety-third
percentile or higher."
He means he's sure, but he's leaving me the
option of one more day's holiday, Jim thought,
entertaining the idea . . . then reluctantly
rejecting it. Better get it over with. He put