"Tom Godwin - The Cold Equations" - читать интересную книгу автора (Godwin Tom)

the machines in the ship's X-ray roomтАФand Billy was asleep, nothing showing of him above the covers
but a crop of brown hair and the furry nose of his ragged teddy bear.
She reached out to straighten the covers, gently, so as not to awaken him. It happened then, the thing
they had all feared.
From the stern of the ship came a jarring, deafening explosion. The ship lurched violently, girders
screamed, and the light flicked out.
In the darkness she heard a rapid-fire thunk-thunk-thunk as the automatic guard system slid
inter-compartment doors shut against sections of the ship suddenly airless. The doors were still thudding
shut when another explosion came, from toward the bow. Then there was silence; a feeling of utter quiet
and motionlessness.
The fingers of fear enclosed her and her mind said to her, like the cold, unpassionate voice of a
stranger: The Gerns have found us.
The light came on again, a feeble glow, and there was the soft, muffled sound of questioning voices in
the other compartments. She dressed, her fingers shaking and clumsy, wishing that Dale would come to
reassure her; to tell her that nothing really serious had happened, that it had not been the Gerns.
It was very still in the little compartmentтАФstrangely so. She had finished dressing when she realized
the reason: the air circulation system had stopped working.
That meant the power failure was so great that the air regenerators, themselves, were dead. And
there were eight thousand people on the Constellation who would have to have air to live . . .
The Attention buzzer sounded shrilly from the public address system speakers that were scattered
down the ship's corridors. A voice she recognized as that of Lieutenant Commander Lake spoke:
"War was declared upon Earth by the Gern Empire ten days ago. Two Gern cruisers have attacked
us and their blasters have destroyed the stern and bow of the ship. We are without a drive and without
power but for a few emergency batteries. I am the Constellation's only surviving officer and the Gern
commander is boarding us to give me the surrender terms.
"None of you will leave your compartments until ordered to do so. Wherever you may be, remain
there. This is necessary to avoid confusion and to have as many as possible in known locations for future
instructions. I repeat: you will not leave your compartments."
The speaker cut off. She stood without moving and heard again the words: I am the Constellation's
only surviving officer . . .
The Gerns had killed her father.
He had been second-in-command of the Dunbar expedition that had discovered the world of Athena
and his knowledge of Athena was valuable to the colonization plans. He had been quartered among the
ship's officersтАФand the Gern blast had destroyed that section of the ship.
She sat down on the edge of the bed again and tried to reorient herself; to accept the fact that her life
and the lives of all the others had abruptly, irrevocably, been changed.
The Athena Colonization Plan was ended. They had known such a thing might happenтАФthat was
why the Constellation had been made ready for the voyage in secret and had waited for months for the
chance to slip through the ring of Gern spy ships; that was why she had raced at full speed, with her
communicators silenced so there would be no radiations for the Gerns to find her by. Only forty days
more would have brought them to the green and virgin world of Athena, four hundred light-years beyond
the outermost boundary of the Gern Empire. There they should have been safe from Gern detection for
many years to come; for long enough to build planetary defenses against attack. And there they would
have used Athena's rich resources to make ships and weapons to defend mineral-depleted Earth against
the inexorably increasing inclosure of the mighty, coldly calculating colossus that was the Gern Empire.
Success or failure of the Athena Plan had meant ultimate life or death for Earth. They had taken every
precaution possible but the Gern spy system had somehow learned of Athena and the Constellation.
Now, the cold war was no longer cold and the Plan was dust . . .
***
Billy sighed and stirred in the little-boy sleep that had not been broken by the blasts that had altered