"David Feintuch - Seafort 02 - Challenger's Hope" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feintuch David)

himself and joined our tour.
Vax knocked on the wardroom hatch. By custom the wardroom was the midshipmen's private territory; except
for inspection, other officers entered only by invitation. The hatch swung open. Seeing us, Midshipman Philip
Tyre came rigidly to attention, in regulation naval slacks and tee shirt. His white shirt, tie and blue jacket lay
neatly on his bunk.
"Mr. Tyre." I regretted my impulse to include Philip in my new command. I should have let him resign when
Hibernia's homecoming had released him from his purgatory. Tyre, at seventeen, was still as breathtakingly
handsome as the day he'd first come aboard Hibernia. But now he wore a wary look, a legacy of the undying
enmity he'd kindled in Alexi Tamarov, when Tyre had been Alexi's senior in the wardroom.
"Yes, sir," Philip waited anxiously. The middy was always obedient to his seniors, eager, cooperative and
helpful. It was to his juniors that his unbearable traits were exposed. After Alexi's promotion, on the long trip
back from Hope Nation, Lieutenant Tamarov had exacted vengeance by setting Philip over the barrel for a
caning whenever opportunity arose.
Time to face the issue, "I wish you a good voyage, Mr, Tyre." I meant it as a signal; Alexi heard but gave no
sign.
Philip's look was almost pleading. "Thank you, sir," Wisely he said no more. We left him to contemplate his
future.
"Are you ever going to ease up, Alexi?" Together, we descended the ladder to Level 2.
"When you order it, sir," His tone was flat.
There was little more I could say. By tradition, the Captain was expected not to involve himself in wardroom
affairs, Alexi, an amiable, goodhearted joey, could normally be depended on not to harass a middy, but In his
misery under Mr, Tyre, Alexi had sworn an oath of revenge to Lord God himself. Lieutenant Tamarov meant
literally what he had told me; he would stop when ordered, but not a moment before.
Fortunately for Philip, the miscreants' barrel was now in First Lieutenant Vax Holser's cabin, rather than Alexi's
where it had sat most of our voyage home.
Shrugging, I continued my tour. Philip had made his own bed. Now, as with all of us, he must sleep in it.

2
"God, Nicky, where have you been?" Amanda shifted her bulging body to the side of her cushioned chair. The
baby was due very soon.
"Hi, hon. Inspecting the ship." I tossed my jacket on the bunk and bent to nuzzle the soft brown hair I'd admired
ever since I'd first seen her, an awkward young middy on Hibernia.
She gave a rueful grin."She's not quite what Challenger would have been."
"Well ..."
"I couldn't pack fast enough when they told me you were transferred. I dreaded that somehow you'd ship on
Portia and I'd be left where I was. What on earth were they thinking of, changing Captains at the last moment?"
It wasn't a topic I cared to dwell on. I sat, made a lap, beckoned her to it. "You didn't want a rest from me?"
She settled cautiously, rested her sweet-scented hair in the crevice of my neck. "Not that long."
I loosened my tie, sighed. "My feet hurt."
From my collarbone came what sounded like a growl. "Try changing places. Everything aches these days."
I knew Amanda's pregnancy was trying, but she'd borne it with a good grace for which I cherished her all the
more. She'd refused even to discuss a host-mother embryo transplant, prenatal rearing, or other alternatives that
would have eased her discomfort.
My eye wandered around the cabin, examining my home for the next three years. It was the largest stateroom
on the ship, far larger than the wardroom I'd shared with several midshipmen in earlier days. An open hatch led
to the Captain's private head. Our cabin had its own shower compartment, similar to the one I'd had on Hibernia.
That was one luxury I'd grown used to.
 Amanda stretched, rose to her feet. "Learn anything in your briefings?"
"Only that Admiral Tremaine doesn't like me." I slipped out of my dress uniform, wishing I'd done so hours
earlier.