"Gardner,.James.Alan.-.Expendable" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardner James Alan)

It was on a night like that, a silent night, that I sat in my quarters, staring
at a list of reports I ought to study. It was late at night, as time was
reckoned on the ship. I took great pride in working late hours. Admittedly, time
is an arbitrary convention in space; but I still enjoyed knowing I was awake
while the rest of the ship slept.
The message buzzer hummed softly in the quiet of my cabin. I turned a dial on my
desktop. "Ramos here."
The face of Lieutenant Harque, the captain's aide, sprang to life on the screen.
Harque had art easy smile and curly good looks, a boy-next-door handsomeness
that let him win over people without having a speck of true charm in his
self-important body. "The captain would like to see you, Explorer."
"Yes?"
"In the conference room. As soon as possible."
"Does she want me to bring Yarrun?"
"I've already contacted Yarrun. Harque out." The picture went blank.
Typical. I had come to expect that sort of thing from Harque. If I confronted
him about it, he would claim he was saving me trouble by calling my subordinate
for me. I slid back my chair and sighed as I headed for the door.
The light over my desk turned off behind me. It did that automatically. The
quick return to darkness always made me think the lamp was eager to see me go.


My Subordinate


Yarrun was waiting for me outside the door. His eyes were bleary-he must have
been asleep when Harque buzzed him. Yarrun preferred an early bedtime. To
compensate, he got up hours before anyone else was awake. He said he enjoyed the
quiet of the ship in the early morning.
I don't know what he did with the time he had to himself. Perhaps he just tended
his own collection-he collected dyed silk.
Explorer Second Class Yarrun Derigha was officially my subordinate because he
graduated from the Academy three years after I did. Unofficially, we were equal
partners. We worked as a team, the only two Expendable Crew Members among
eighty-seven Vacuum crew members too valuable to be wasted.
Yarrun was missing the left side of his face. To be precise, the left half of
his jaw never formed and the right hadn't grown since he was six. The result
looked like half a head, with the skin stretched taut from his left cheekbone to
his partial right jaw.
There was nothing else wrong with Yarrun. His brain was intact. His Intelligence
Profile ranked higher than ninety-nine percent of the population. He had some
trouble eating solids, but the Admiralty graciously accommodated that-the
cafeteria stocked a large supply of nutritious fluids.
When he talked, his enunciation was unfailingly precise. Since it cost him a
great deal of effort, he preferred not to speak if he could help it.
I had known Yarrun six years, first in the Academy, then on the ship. We had
saved each other's lives so often we no longer kept count. We could talk to each
other about anything, and we could be quiet together without feeling
uncomfortable. I was as close to Yarrun as I have ever wanted to be with anyone.
And yet.