"David G. Hartwell - Years best sf 11" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hartwell David G)

team.

So there I am, cooling my heels and everything else besides out past the orbit of Neptune, when I get a
blip on my radar. Something is out there, and it isn't supposed to be, and the Coordinators don't know
about it, and that's the first time that's happened to me.

It's too late for me to go all stealthy. I've had my radar and transponder shouting out for all to hear, so
I've already given up my shit. I figured I might as well play Damager, so I flipped on the horn and spoke
in Belligerent Asshole voice.

"This is the licensed Damager One in the Hand addressing the unidentified object at 183.24.46 inclineтАФ
16 out 67 heading 004.58.07. Please reactivate transponder and identify." At the same time, I sent a burst
of machine code that would give the same message, minus the belligerent tone, to the automated systems
of the ship.

And how did I know it was a ship and not some piece of rock wandering off its accustomed orbit? After
all, the only thing I had to go on was a little radar blip. It could be anything. Well, call it a gut feeling if
you want to. A few minutes of datagathering and my ship's targeting computer confirmed my suspicions.
The thing was hollow and rotating, and about thirty thousand klicks back, it had shed a wisp of chemical
rocket exhaust during a coursecorrecting burn.

So I was right. Hell, I ought to be. I've survived out here longer than most people have been alive, and
most of that time was spent hunting ships. I can smell a can of meat across a thousand kilometers of void.

But there was no answer from the unidentified vessel. Nobody ignores a Damager. I laid in a course and
burned hard for the cheeky bastard. I overtook easily in just a few hours. He didn't even try to run. That's
when I got my first look at the ship.

Ship. I'm being charitable. It was made of rock and ice, and only a miracle gave it enough balance to
burn the engines without wobble. This thing wouldn't last ten minutes inside the orbit of Mars. Sol
would cook off the ice and leave nothing holding it together. It was no wonder the Coordinators hadn't
pegged it. It looked like just another fucking rock.

"In case you haven't got any sensors, my friend, I'll tell you that I've matched vectors two thousand
meters from yourтАж well, I guess we'll call it a vessel. Now, I already told you I'm a Damager, but just in
case you've been living under a rock, or inside one, for a long time, I'll tell you what that means. That
means I've got a weapon trained on you that will take your whole outfit down to plasma in just a couple
of seconds. Okay, you're probably asking yourself about now what you have to do to avoid the fate I've
just described. You can tell me who you are for starters, and we'll go from there."



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 Jarpe, Matthew - City of Reason

I gave it a few minutes with my message repeating on all frequencies in a couple dozen common
languages and I got my reply. "Uh, don't shoot, mister. I'm Jesse Marslarsen. I'm out of the High
Fantastic Empire of TransEmotional Excellence."

I looked that one up. Sixtythree people in a cave hollowed out of an ice ball about two hundred million