"Alan Dean Foster - Splinter of the Mind's Eye" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

In the Y-wing's tiny cabin Threepio sighed, gripped the walls around him more firmly. "Try to set us
down gently, please, Princess. Rough landings do terrible things to my internal gyros."
"They're not so good on my insides either," the Princess shot back, lips clenched tightly as she fought
the sluggish controls. "Besides, you've nothing to worry about. 'Droids can't get spacesick."
Threepio could have argued otherwise, but remained silent as the Y-wing commenced a stomach-
turning roll downward. Luke had to react rapidly to follow. There was one tiny positive sign: the
beacon signal was not imaginary. It was really there, beeping steadily when he adjusted the controls on
his board so that the signal was audible. Maybe Leia was right.
But he still didn't feel confident. "Artoo, let me know if you spot anything unusual on our way down.
Keep all your sensory plug-ins on full power." A reassuring whistle filled the cockpit.
They were at two hundred kilometers and descending when Luke jumped in his seat. Something began
pushing at his mind. A stirring in the Force. He tried to relax, to let it fill and flow over and through
him just as old Ben had instructed him.
His sensitivity was far from perfectly attuned and he sincerely doubted he would ever attain half the
command of the Force that Kenobi had possessed... though the old man had expressed great
confidence in Luke's potential. Still, he knew enough to categorize that subtle tingling. It sparked an

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Splinter Of The Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster

almost palpable feeling of unease in him, and it came from something (or several somethings) on the
surface below. Yet he wasn't sure. Not that he could do anything about it now. The only concern of the
moment was hoping the Princess' ship could set down safely.
But the sooner they left Mimban, the better he'd feel.
Despite her own problems, the Princess was taking the time to relay coordinate information to him. As
if he couldn't plot her own course by himself. Instead, he tried to identify something he'd just spotted
below them as they entered the outer atmosphere. Something funny in the clouds here... he couldn't
decide just what.
He voiced his new concern to the Princess. "Luke you're worrying too much. You'll worry yourself to
death at an early age. And that would be a waste of..."
He never did find out what worrying himself to death would be a waste of because at that moment they
entered troposphere for the first time and the immediate reaction of both ships to the thicker air and air
to ships was anything but normal.
It seemed as if they'd suddenly plunged from a cloud-dotted but unexceptional-appearing sky into an
ocean of liquid electricity. Gigantic multicolored bolts of energy erupted from empty air, contacted the
hulls of the two ships and fomented instrumental chaos where order had reigned seconds before.
Instead of the blue or yellow-tinged canopy they'd expected to sail through, the atmosphere around
them was drenched with bizarre, perambulating energies so wild and frenzied they bordered on the
animate. Behind Luke, Artoo Detoo beeped nervously.
Luke fought his own instrumentation. It flaunted a farrago of electronic nonsense at him. The madly
bucking X-wing was held in the grip of unidentified forces powerful enough to toss it about like a
plaything. The chromatic storm vanished behind him as if he'd suddenly emerged from a waterspout,
but his controls continued to exhibit what were probably permanent manifestations of the
electronically addled.
A quick verbal survey revealed what he most feared: the Princess' fighter was nowhere in sight. Trying
to control his drunken ship with one hand on the manual controls, Luke activated the communicator
with the other.
"Leia! Leia, are you...?"
"No... control, Luke," came the static-sprinkled reply. He could barely make out the words.
"Instruments... replonza. I'm trying to get down in... one piece. If we..."