"Sharon Green - Ram Song" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Sharon)

had come in the five years of his isolation.
He could see them in the distance: five of them cresting a low
hill. They moved purposefully, and when they saw him, they lapsed
into silence.
He felt a wrenching pang of regret. They had come for him. But it
was too soon. Too soon.
One of them, a woman, stepped out of the group toward him. He
stared at her. She seemed familiar, but he could not call her
name.
She held a small bundle in her hands, but made no move to open it
or offer it. She seemed apologetic, and it was obvious to him that
she desperately
RAM SONG 5
wished she were somewhere else. "I'm sorry, Kurt Prime," she said
at last. "There's trouble"
He tried to gather his thoughts. "Trouble?"
"With the Ram. Communications with star drive are garbled. Our
instruments are showing an echo effect, but nothing registers on
sensory."
He stared at her. "Where are we?"
"Off Aulos, the second planet of Cuivre. The mortal colony from
Renascence," she prompted. "Most were musicians."


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Acknowledgments

When he said nothing, she went on. "There's something else. We've
lost contact with one of our skimmers. We're sending a homing
beam, but we can't read the skimmer's position." She hesitated,
then said, "Alani was on board."
"Alani?" His little girl? Alarm tracked through him. "Does Liss
know?" She had to be told.
A puzzled look came into the woman's eyes. "Who?"
"Liss. Her mother.... My wife."
Her eyes widened, then dropped, and she refused to meet his gaze
again. Instead, she thrust the little bundle toward him.
It opened in his hands. He stared down at the iridescent helmet.
Its crystal tendrils spilling through his fingers glittered as
they moved in the wind. He looked at the little group, first at
one, then another, finally the woman. At her faint nod, he lifted
the cap and put it on.
It was soft and light. Its tens of thousands of tiny crystals,
woven intricately together, covered his hair completely; its
faceted tendrils hung to his shoulders. He felt the helmet mold to
the contours of his head, and as it did, he knew that it was his
alone. He sensed rather than felt it interface with the circuits
hidden beneath his hair at the base of his skull; and as he did,
the flood came and he staggered against its intensity.
Alani. Not a little girl. Not a little girl for ten thousand years