"Charles L. Harness - The Ring of Ritornel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

logical.
"Captain you are right on one point. We are running out of time. But the trail
is hot. It is now or never, for I can never come here again. You will proceed
as ordered, or I will have you shot for mutiny." His voice was almost casual.
Captain Andrek, not commonly given to the use of adjectives in his thinking,
now found himself indulging in strange imagery, and he considered his own
mental processes with mingled fascination and amazement.
Throughout his long career in the League navy, death had been a very personal
and intimate companion. His wife (whom he had adored while she lived) had
wryly named death his mistress. This had puzzled him. He had always accepted
death as a condition of his life, but had never (he thought) actively sought
her. There were rules about death in the service. All his life he had followed
the rules. He had been faithful to his contract with death, and it had never
occurred to him that finally death would be unfaithful. She was sometimes
cruel (he'd often wondered whether he would die screaming), but at least his
own death ought to be a phenomenon directed exclusively at him, and in which
he would play a vital role. And now this. Death by default. Death was bored by
himтАФif it noticed him at all. It was a farce a silly playlet without merit or
point, a chance encounter between strangers. Death was not scintillating;
death was a mindless oaf.
He thought of his sons. Omere the poetтАФthe strange one. And Jamie, the logical
one, not yet in his teens. From here on in, they would have to take care of
each other.
He looked around calmly at the shocked faces of the under- . officers, then
spoke to the lieutenant. "If I am killed, it is nothing. But get the ship out
of here, quickly."
The young man in the blue tunic nodded to bis aide. "Huntyr,kill him."
Huntyr was a big man,, yet quick and nervous in his movements. He had none of
the ponderous gentleness that often accompanies a big frame. His face held
more cunning than intelligence. And it was a subservient face, which frankly
8
drew its substance from the young Magister, thereby being pleasantly released
from personal judgments and choices between moral values. Captain Andrek
wondered where Oberon had picked him up. The association seemed to reflect
some subterranean malignancy in Oberon's own mentality, and augured ill for
his approaching reign.
Huntyr started to draw his biem.
The young man frowned. "Not the biem, you fool. It will not fire in the Node
area."
"Sorry." Huntyr replaced the biem, drew his slug-gun in a smooth motion, and
fired. Captain Andrek staggered against the ward room wall, clutching his
chest. There, he floated up slowly in a weightless heap. Blood circled a neat
hole in his shirt over his heart.
Oberon sighed. "Get rid of him."
Two ratings finally clacked on magnetic shoes over to the corpse and shoved
the body ahead of them into the pilot room.
"Lieutenant," said the young man to the nearest stricken face, "will you
accept my orders?"
Just at this moment, parts of the lieutenant's cerebral processes were jammed,
awry, and other parts were whirring senselessly. Nothing inside his head