"Planet Of Twilight (Barbara Hambley)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

harried, from the comm board, which had blazed into life like a festival lamp,
to stab yet another flashing switch. "Are you not getting an answer from the
Borealis, or what?"
"It seems to be a simple signal block, sir." Communications Chief Oran
touched her forehead in a nervous salute. "Legassi is running a scan for it."
In the small screen, Oran turned in her chair, granting the Commander a
glimpse of the comm center, on whose main board a huge readout of the
Adamantine's comm circuits was illuminated in glowing yellow lines.
Red lights flowed along them, synaptic testing for a blockage or
interference in the power transmission, easy enough to find and correct under
ordinary circumstances.
But the circumstances had gone from ordinary to hideous in just under ten
minutes. And by the red lights flaring all over his comm board; by the hastily
gasped message from the infirmary; and by the sudden absence of anyone
replying or reporting from maintenance, shuttles, power, and several other
ship sections, things were plunging from bad to worse with the speed of a
decaying orbit.
"Legassi?" ()ran rose from her chair. Zoalin saw' past her that the chair
he had thought empty in front of the scan console was, in fact, occupied.
Yeoman Legassi had collapsed forward over his console, squa-mous salmon-
colored hands clutching the edge of the board spasmodically, in time to the
dreadful shudders that ran like waves through his frame.
Zoalin thought, Calamari aren't supposed to be affected by human viruses.
.. If this was a virus.
Neither, of course, were Sullustans or Nalroni, both of which species
were represented by crew members who had reported ill in the past five
minutes. Zoalin seemed to recall from his xenoNology courses that Nalroni and
Mon Calamari were a textbook example of mutually exclusive immune systems.
What a Nalroni could get, a Calamari literally couldn't.
"Legassi?" Oran bent over the Mon Calamari's shivering body.
"Legassi, what...?" She staggered a little, almost as if she had been
struck, and put a hand to her chest. Groping, as if trying to massage away
some numbness or pain.
"Commander Zoalin," stated the calm voice of Two-Onebee, the head of the
infirmary section, on the channel that he had left open, "I regret to report
that bacta tank therapy appears to accelerate rather than retard dissolution
of subjects, by a factor of nearly thirty-five percent, as far as can be
analyzed."
With the measured tones sounding in his earclip, Zoalin flicked the
central console screen from image to image, keying through to corridors. here
the search teams in quest of the signal block device turned toward the
infirmary as first one, then another of their number would stop, lean against
the wall, knead and rub at the chest or head or side.
The view cut to sick bay', where the calm and tireless droids operated
mechanical lifts to remove Sergeant Wover's lifeless, dripping body from the
bacta tank; to the shuttle bay control room where the last yeoman on duty lay
dying alone in a corner by the door.
Fifteen minutes, thought Zoalin blankly. fifteen minutes since Wover
signaled from the deck-nine break room.
He hadn't even severed the connection when the other calls had started