"Foster, Alan Dean - Star Wars - Splinter Of The Mind's Eye" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

"There is no permanent nerve damage," the doctor informed him as Grammel slid out of the infirmary surgery booth. Grammel continued to study his arm. "The nerves were easy to lay back in and the bone sealed smooth. Your arm is good as new. It will feel and act like it in about five days. Only one thing." The Captain-Supervisor looked at her! "You'll never sweat from that arm again." As the doctor continued putting away her instruments, she continued conversationally, "If more than your forearm had been equally destroyed-let's suppose the entire upper half of your right side-then we'd have had to equip you with at least one series of artificial perspirators. But with radical reconstruction restricted to your right forearm, your body will compensate for the lost area easily enough."
With an exploratory hand she reached out and touched the right side of Grammel's face. "How is your hearing on this side?"
"Adequate," Grammel replied curtly. "You're an efficient mechanic, Doctor. I'll see that you're suitably rewarded."
"There is a way to do that."
"What would you like?"
She slipped out of her stained robe and returned to arranging her instruments neatly within the proper cabinets. She was an old woman and her eyesight and hearing were not what they once were. Certainly not as good as Captain-Supervisor Grammel's, even allowing for the new timpanium she'd installed in the rebuilt ear.
An unlucky woman, she'd permitted her modest talents to be used by the Empire. Such was often the case with people who no longer cared much about living or dying. She hadn't cared since a particular young man had perished in a fiery landspeeder crash some forty years ago. The Empire had stepped in and given her, if not exactly a reason to live, something useful to do in lieu of dying.
She squinted up at him. "Don't execute those six troops. The ones from the rear restraint detachment."
"That's a surprising request for a reward," Grammel mused. "No," he added somberly, seeing the expression on her face, "I suppose it's not. Not coming from you. I have to refuse."
He ran a hand over the dark suture that ran from the upper part of his partly shaved skull down by his rebuilt ear to disappear like a fishing line into his lower jaw. There was an organic suspension implanted along that line. It would hold his jaw in place and allow it to function normally until that side of his face knitted properly. When the healing process was complete, the suture would be absorbed into his body.
"They're incompetent," he finished.
"Unlucky," the doctor countered firmly. She was about the only person on Mimban who dared argue with the Captain-Supervisor. Healers can usually afford to be independent. Those who might be tempted to fight with them never know when they might have need of their services. To Grammel, a little dissension was cheap insurance against an accidental slip of the bone welder.
Turning from her, he studied himself in a mirror. "Six fools. They allowed the prisoners to escape."
As usual, the doctor couldn't begin to read Grammel's thoughts. It was entirely possible he was admiring the scar running parallel to her suture. Most men would have been appalled by it. Grammel's aesthetics, however, differed from those of most men.
"Two Yuzzem," the doctor reminded him, "with human aid are a difficult combination to fight. Especially if outside help was involved."
Grammel turned to her. "That is what has been troubling me. They must have had such help. The escape was too clean, too neat, for it to be otherwise. Especially for a pair of strangers. You still have not given me a legitimate reason for canceling the execution of the six guards."
"Two of them are permanently maimed," she told him, "and the others all scarred in various ways beyond my ability to repair. Your resources here are far from limitless, Captain-Supervisor. If you intend to search the region around all the towns you're going to need every walking man you have. Besides, compassion makes men work harder than fear."
"You're a romantic, Doctor," Grammel countered. "Despite which, your evaluation of my resources is quite accurate." He turned to exit the room.
"Then you'll countermand those execution orders?" she called after him.
"I have no choice," he admitted. "One cannot argue with figures." The door closed silently behind him.
The doctor turned back to her white sanctuary, gratified. Her task was to save lives. Whenever she could do that in a situation in which Grammel was involved, she felt a true sense of accomplishment....

Days passed, became four, then five, six.
On the morning of the seventh day, Luke slid into the seat alongside Halla. The old woman insisted on taking her turn behind the controls and neither Luke nor Leia could talk her out of it.
"You said seven days," Luke finally ventured evenly.
"To ten," she admitted amiably, continuing to keep her attention on the ground ahead of them. She fought to give the impression that age had honed instead of weakened her ability to penetrate the mist.
Great trees with down-curving branches hung close by them. Halla negotiated a winding path around the thick boles.
Leia was resting on one of the cushioned, water-repellent seats behind them, gnawing on an oblong piece of fruit she'd found in one of the food lockers. The fruit shone in the dim daylight. It had been treated with some kind of slick preservative that gave it a honey-like glaze.
"You sure we're going in the right direction?"
"Oh, there's no mistaking that, girl," Halla insisted. "But the distance could be a little uncertain. The greenies have a way of telling you what you want to hear. Maybe the one who babbled to me felt that if he'd told me the temple of Pomojema was a month's journey off instead of a week's, I wouldn't have given him his methanol roll."
"Maybe," the Princess suggested, "he told you there was a temple because he thought the same way. Maybe there is no such temple."
"We do have the piece of crystal as proof," Luke pointed out. "At least, we did." He looked downcast.
"There now, Luke boy," Halla comforted him. "As you said, there was nothing you could have done about that."
"Are you sure about the crystal's properties, Luke?" the Princess asked uncertainly.
Luke nodded slowly. "I couldn't have made a mistake, Leia. That stirring inside me when I touched it... I've only felt that before in the presence of Obi-wan Kenobi." He stared off into the damp greenery. "It's strange, like waves breaking inside your head, through your whole body."
"Okay, the crystal gets first priority then." She turned to face Halla. "But afterward, we have to get off this planet. The Alliance will give you whatever reward you wish, Halla, if you help us."
"Oh, you can count on that," she said. "I'll do my best for you two." She noticed a beep from Artoo and added, "Excuse me... you four. But I want nothin' to do with the Rebels. I'm no outlaw."
"We're not outlaws either!" an outraged Leia exclaimed. "We're revolutionaries and reformers."
"Political outlaws, then," Halla shot back.
"The Empire is staffed by outlaws."
The old woman grinned back at Leia, her expression wizened by years. "I'm no philosopher, girl, and I lost any martyr complex I might've had forty years ago."
"Come on, you two," Luke broke in uncomfortably.
"Do you think she's right, Luke?" the Princess asked quietly.
"Leia, I..."
"Well, boy?" Halla watched him expectantly.
He was saved the necessity of a response as an abrupt lurch threw everyone toward the left side of the crawler. Halla responded swiftly by throwing all six wheels into reverse. Leaning over the side, Luke had a bad moment when he saw the forward balloon wheel sinking into something with the consistency of watered porridge.
But the crawler was well designed. Multiwheel drive and the powerful engine pulled them clear. Halla leaned over the wheel for a minute, then studied the terrain ahead. A paler plot of ground lay between patches of the treacherous sludge. Running forward once more, the crawler pushed on over firmer ground.
"You have to be alert every second on Mimban," Halla declared. "This is a crazy world, where the ground itself is your most uncertain enemy." As if in response, the ground trembled beneath them. Luke frowned, peered over the side.
"Just how stable is this region?" the Princess inquired uneasily.
"First you want me to be a philosopher, now a seismologist," quipped Halla. "Stable? You know as much as I, child. There are no volcanoes hereabouts, but-"