"Keith Fenwick - Skid 03 - Skid 3" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fenwick Keith)

"Not entirely." Raele wasn't happy with the way the offworlders were
talking about Skid, as if he wasn't there, as if the great civilisation he had
known most of his life was no more, even if they were right.
"What do you mean Raele?"
"My father rebuilt your organic plant after he charged me with returning
you to your planet."
Bruce wasn't interested in the fact that Inel was Raele's old man so
much, but the prospect of seeing his farm immediately got his attention.
"You mean Inel was your father?" Bruce asked wondering whether he should
change his appraisal of the old man who had always seemed disinterested and
difficult.
"Yes."
"Can we go out there and have a look?"
Mitch didn't know that he was all that keen on flying about this odd
planet, however it looked as if he had little choice in the matter. Bruce and
Sue were obviously keen to go and it seemed that Raele was prepared to take
them especially when he realised that the place they were headed for was out
in the hinterland somewhere. The wilderness had an ominous sound to it. Mitch
would have much preferred to stick around the city, he was comfortable in
cities and had a sneaking suspicion he had some kind of phobia about open
areas. It hadn't been a problem in recent years as he was continually
surrounded by Secret service agents and other hangers on. In the days before
he had achieved any sort of prominence he had always had an aversion to open
areas.
He didn't realise that this disquieting sensation gave him a strong
affinity with most Skidians that he would never have believed possible. He
also harboured the faint hope that somehow he would find somebody, some way of
getting back to earth before it was too late, before he was forgotten and he
felt that sticking around the city was probably his best chance of that
happening.
Still when the others started back in the direction of the space ship, he
followed them. He didn't want to be left behind by himself either. The other
three showed little interest in him and he sensed that they didn't give a shit
whether he was with them or not.
Raele was relieved to find the patrol craft where he had left it and none
of the service crews in evidence. He had worried all the way back from Inel's
office that a service crew might have removed it, or tampered with the
navsystem system or devised some other trick to annoy him. He completed his
preflight check more carefully than usual and found to his relief that
everything seemed normal. Though for the first time he began to question who
or what actually was in, had always been in control of Skid.
The idea that machines, the service crews and their central control
system might actually run Skid and not Skidians as they had always believed
frightened and disgusted Raele. Part of him, the part that said that Skid and
Skidians were superior to anything else in the universe because that's what
he'd been brought up to believe, refused to accept that Skid was run by
machines and the Skidians were merely there to give them something to look
after.
They'd developed and built the machines at some point in the past, hadn't
they?