"Tom Godwin - The Space barbarians" - читать интересную книгу автора (Godwin Tom)

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The Space Barbarians
by Tom Godwin
The victory fleet was two days from Earth when the phantom ship
appeared again.

It came without warning, as it always did. John Humbolt was in the
control room of the Ragnarok, glancing idly at the forward view screen. It
showed nothing but the featureless blackness of hyperspace, then the
bright white spot was suddenly glowing in the center of it.

"NormanтАФit's here again," he said. He pushed the Weapons Stations
Alert button and spoke into the ship's intercom: "The Ghost ship is dead
aheadтАФthis may be the time it shows us what it's after."

Norman Lake came over to the viewscreen, a blond, silently moving
man with the face of a pale-eyed wolf.

"Not Gern," Norman said, watching the white spot on the screen. "After
three bloody years the Gern Empire is no moreтАФyet the Ghost still follows
us."

"I wonder if the things on the Ghost will scare the mockers again?"
John said. "They alwaysтАФ"

His answer came in the racing patter of tiny feet as two of the
chipmunk-like telepathic mockers came running into the control room.
They did not stop until they were on John's shoulders, their little paws
clinging tightly to his collar.

"Scared!" Tip chattered. Freckles, his mate, repeated, "Scared!"
 He used Tip to speak to Dale Ord, who had just gone to the drive room:

"Bring Tiny at once, Dale. Let's see what she can tell us."

He formed the mental image of Dale as he spoke and Tip sent the
message telepathically to Tiny, Dale's mocker, who would then repeat it
aloud to Dale.

There was a flash of black in the doorway and the huge tiger-wolf
prowlers, Fenrir and Sigyn, came loping in. They stopped beside John
with the fur half lifted on their shoulders and both wariness and question
in their yellow eyes.