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

. . . and over her comes climbing other light,
passing out of the fire of the far side's day: a golden
light like a star, dimmed from a blaze to a spark as it
passes the terminator, twenty-five thousand miles
high. Moonlight silvers her now as she
approaches, not hurrying, a shade more than eleven
thousand miles per hour, not quite geosynchronous,
gaining on the Earth. She seems a delicate thing
at first, while dis
tant-a toy, all slender pale light and
razory shadows-then bigger, not a toy, anymore,
the paired nacelles growing, spearing upward, reaching
as high as thirty-story buildings, the main dish
blocking the sky away from zenith to "horizon" as
it passes by, passes over. Silent she
passes, massive, burning silver, gemmed in
ruby and emerald with her running lights,
black only where shadows fall and where the letters
spell her number and name in one language of her
planet of registry, the planet she's about
to leave. NCC 1701, the Starship Enterprise,
slips past in moonlight, splashed faint on her
undersides with the light of Earth's cities, ready
to give all the light up for the deep cold dark that
is her proper home ....
It takes time to walk right around a staTS-HIP.
j Eleven decks in the primary hull, twelve
in the second beary, from an eighth of a mile of
corridors per deck to i maybe two or
three-the old simile comparing a star beship to a
small town becomes more obviously true than ever
to someone determined to do the hike. Jim, though,
didn't mind how long it took, and he did as much
of it as time allowed, every time he came aboard after a
refit.
This time he altered his usual routine a little. After
all day stuck down at Fleet, he thought, I'm
entitled to a change of pace. Bloody desk
pilots . . . . But a
j second later he put away the annoyance:
he had what j he had gone for. Jim laughed
to himself, and shortly j thereafter beamed up via
the cargo transporters, along were with a shipment of
computer media, toiletries, and medical
supplies.
Cargo Transport was a more pleasant place,
in some ways, than the usual crew transporters.
The
huge room was in the space next to the
shuttlecraft