"James Alan Gardner - League of Peoples 01 - Expendable" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardner James Alan)

"No."

"Then they aren't close."

Yarrun and I had spent a lot of time waiting in that room. We knew each bleep, chirp, and fribble the
machinery could make. We knew each bleep, chirp, and fribble a tail-operator could make. After a
while, the noises blended into a harmonious whole.

"You almost had it that time, Harque! Can't you be more careful?"

"Sorry, captain."

The observation deck where we sat was a U-shaped mezzanine around the actual transport bay, twelve
meters below and separated from us by thick pink-tinted plastic. The walls around us sported
rainbow-striped jacaranda trees; this was the first area most visitors saw when they came on board, and
Prope was desperate to make a jaunty impression.

The control console occupied the base of the mezzanine U. Opposite it, down in the bay, was the Aft
Entry Mouth, a circular aperture leading out of the ship and into the Sperm-tail. At present, the Mouth
was closed with an irising mechanism that bulged slightly outward under the air pressure of the ship.
When the iris opened, anything in the transport bay weighing less than twenty tonnes would be propelled
out the Mouth and spat through the tail like phlegm.

It wasn't an elegant way to travelтАФAdmirals usually arrived in trim little shuttles, as did delicate cargo
shipmentsтАФbut receiving such deliveries meant dropping our Sperm field, then waiting twelve hours while
the forward Sperm generator rebuilt the envelope. It only took a second to reestablish the field itself...
but aligning the tail to surround the ship rather than drift off on its own demanded extensive calibration
efforts that always left the crew in a foul mood. Either the High Council of Admirals had decided not to
put the Vac-hands through that strain, or Chee's business with theJacaranda was too urgent for any
delay.

I was glad it was Chee being transported, not me. Though I had squirted through the tail more than a
hundred times, I never enjoyed it. Some Explorers did. Yarrun said it felt like a ride at an amusement
center: your feet swooped out from under you, your brain dimmed to black, the space-distorting forces in
the tail twisted you through a few hyperdimensions, and then you slid out the other end like sound
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emerging from a trumpet. Dozens of people had done it without even wearing an impact suit (despite
safety regs). The death rate was lower than any other form of transport used in the Outward Fleet.

And yet....

When I stood down there in my suit, waiting for the blue light that said the tail had been secured, I
sometimes prayed something would save me from that five second ride. "Sorry, Festina, all a big mistake,
you don't have to go today."

I was a child who never believed in fairies, but still told herself fairy tales.