"Hawke, Simon - Descent-FreeSpace - Hammer of Light, Omen of Darkness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawke Simon)

"Why spare me, then?" Harlow asked. "You had your fighters double and triple team me, so that you could cripple my weapons and navigation systems without blowing me apart. What makes me so goddamn special that you wanted me alive?"
"Essentially, your rank, Commander," Tallanis said. "Although you seem to possess some qualities that I find admirable and worthy of respect, the simple fact of the matter is that you are an officer of the Galactic Terran Alliance, specifically, a combat officer... and I need one."
"Then IТm afraid you wasted your time," said Harlow. "IТm just a fighter jock, Admiral. We donТt have a lot of СNeed to KnowТ when it comes to highly classified intelligence. WeТre just point and shoot. You ought to know that."
"You mistake my meaning, Harlow, if I may permit myself the familiarity of addressing you by name," Tallanis said, rising from his command chair. He approached Harlow and looked down at him. Harlow was six feet tall, and Tallanis had at least another foot and a half on him. "I did not bring you aboard my ship so that I could interrogate you, but so that you could, in a manner of speaking, interrogate me and my crew."
Harlow blinked. "You want to run that one by me again?"
"All the Galactic Terran Alliance knows about the Hammer of Light is what the Foreign Ministry of the Vasudan Empire tells them," said Tallanis. "And that is not only secondhand information, it is also very biased and utterly self-serving. I want the Terrans to know the truth ... from someone who has experienced it firsthand."
"Then why not tell them yourself?" asked Harlow. "Your knowledge of Terran Standard is excellent. Translators do not usually compensate for syntactical patterns so smoothly. You may not be able to speak the language, Admiral, but IТm betting you can read and write it fluently."
"Indeed, I can," Tallanis replied. "I am something of a student of your human culture. Enough to know that your innate distrust of your own various races was overwhelmed only by your xenophobia towards extraterrestrials. Your alliance with the Vasudan Empire exists only out of a perceived necessity, and is based less on trust than on a mutual fear of extinction. I can easily discern your true feelings for my people, Commander Harlow. My words to humanity would only be the words of yet another detestable Vasudan. And a renegade, at that. They would listen far more readily to one of their own, to a veteran combat officer of the Galactic Terran Alliance Starfleet."
Harlow frowned and narrowed his eyes, uncertain he had heard correctly. "You saying you want me to be your PR man?"
Tallanis hesitated, apparently not familiar with the term and waiting for the translator headpiece to sort through all the acronymic possibilties and choose the proper one from the context. "Ah, a public relations representative," he said, a moment later, then nodded. "Excellent. In essence, yes. That is exactly what I want."
"Then youТve gotta be out of your bloody, goddamn mind.... sir."
Tallanis chuckled with that strange, deep, grunting sound. "I have been accused of that before. I ask nothing more than that you speak the truth, as you perceive it. We will speak more of this. In the meantime, I have taken the liberty of having quarters prepared for you. There will be no enforced confinement unless your actions should make that necessary. You may have the run of the ship -- save for certain secure areas such as the armoury, of course. For reasons of security, you understand, you will be kept under constant guard. You may be a prisoner of war, Commander, but we shall attempt to make your stay with us as comfortable as possible. I want you to know us, Harlow. And to understand us. You must understand if you are to communicate our purpose. Now, if you will excuse me, I must see to it that the prize crew have completed the task of requisitioning the necessary supplies from the freighter."
"And what about the freighterТs crew?" asked Harlow, tensely.
"I am told that they did not put up a struggle."
"So you killed them all?" asked Harlow, with a sinking feeling.
"I am a soldier, Harlow, not a murderer. I do not kill people who surrender. That is not my purpose. There were some injuries, but no fatalities. They have functional life support in the sealed off sections of their vessel which have maintained structural integrity. They had already sent out a distress signal, so they should survive until a rescue ship arrives."
And with that, Tallanis nodded to HarlowТs escort, and the Elites led him from the bridge, down a short companionway, and to an interior tube shuttle that traversed the length of the ship. The guards did not speak to Harlow as they led him into the shuttle and indicated a seat. His human anatomy did not quite fit properly, but he made do. With a soft hiss, the door slid shut and the clear-walled, egg-shaped shuttle began to slide along the tube, gathering speed as it went.
He glanced at the Elites sitting across from him. One was clearly an officer, the equivalent of a lieutenant of Marines, if Harlow recalled his Vasudan insignia. He met the EliteТs gaze. "Are you allowed to talk to the prisoner?" he asked, wryly.
"Speak, you wish?" the Vasudan replied, his syntax clearly not as good as his commanding officerТs. The translators could only translate; they couldnТt make you sound more erudite than you were.
"Sure, why not?" said Harlow.
"About what, speak?"
"Oh, I dunno. You. The admiral. This ship. This nutso prophecy that you all seem to believe in."
The word "nutso" seemed to hang up the VasudanТs translator for a moment. Harlow grinned.
"Admiral Tallanis great man is," the Elite replied, after a moment. "Spiritual man is. Visionary leader is. The prophecy foretells does truly. Not ... nutso."
"Not nutso, eh?"
"Not."
Harlow snorted. "So weТre all supposed to die, is that it? The Shivans are the Hand of God, come to cleanse the universe, something like that? And weТre all just supposed to roll over, put our heads between our legs and kiss our butts goodbye? Just because about a thousand years ago, some goofball Vasudan holy man had a few too many belts one night and said so? Is that the deal, more or less?"
Judging by the EliteТs reaction, the translator seemed to be having a tough time with that one. Harlow didnТt care. He half-hoped the Elite would come up out of that contoured seat and take a swing at him for making fun of his beliefs, but he knew that wasnТt going to happen. Tallanis ran a tight ship, and the old deathhead needed him, or thought he did. He had made that clear enough, though why he really give a damn what humans thought about him one way or the other didnТt seem to make much sense. He wipes out my entire squadron, Harlow thought, then spares the freighterТs crew and asks me to get his terrorist message out to the GTA, so that the Hammer of Light could be properly understood. Tallanis may have been a brilliant soldier once, and perhaps he still is, but he had to be completely certifiable.
Either the translator had made a complete muddle of his slang, or else the Elite had simply chosen not to bother to respond, because the rest of their short ride was spent in silence. Harlow was escorted to his quarters, which had apparently been vacated for his benefit by some Vasudan officer, judging by their size and furnishings. It was a lot nicer than the berth he had back at Tombaugh Station. The Elites took up their post outside the door as it closed automatically.
"Well, here we are," Harlow said to himself out loud, as he glanced around at his surroundings. "Home, sweet, alien home."
"ItТs not exactly what I wouldТve picked, either."
Harlow started at the familiar and totally unexpected sound of another human voice. A female human voice. She stood in the bedroom doorway, hands braced against the doorframe, watching him with a speculative gaze. Harlow had never seen her before. Her dark hair was cut short and she stood about five-five, slender and leggy. She was young, Harlow guessed in her early to mid-twenties. And she wore the uniform of a lieutenant junior grade in the GTA Merchant Space Fleet -- which could only mean one thing, of course. She was off the freighter theyТd been escorting.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked, as soon as heТd recovered from his initial surprise.
"I was trying to figure out more or less the same thing," she replied. "But I think now I understand. It all makes a weird, but perfect kind of sense, I guess."
"Well, then maybe you wouldnТt mind explaining it to me," said Harlow. "And if you donТt mind, Lieutenant, identify yourself?"
With a smirk, she straightened up, approached him, and snapped off a crisp salute. "Lieutenant Rafferty, C.J., Merchant Space Fleet, late of the MS Orion Maru, reporting for duty, sir!"
"Duty? What the hell are you talking about? What duty? WeТre both prisoners of war."
She gave a small snort. "A little slow on the uptake, huh, Commander? That chauvinist Vasudan dinosaur up there on the bridge decided you needed some female companionship, so I got Сrequisitioned,Т along with everything else they needed off my ship. DonТt you get it? IТm here for you. So .... Сreporting for duty.Т Sir," she added, wryly.
Harlow stared at her. "YouТve gotta be kiddinТ me."
"Hey, figure it out, hot shot," she said. "They didnТt even give me time to pack any spare clothes. I guessed they figured I wouldnТt be needing them. Much."
"ThatТs insane. They bring anyone else from the Orion Maru aboard?"
"Nope. Just me. They lined up the whole crew of the freighter, segregated the males from the females, and then one of the Vasudans went down the line, checking us all out up and down. I guess he had a vidlink thru his helmet com to the mothership. So who was watching the monitor on the other end?" She raised her eyebrows. "You?"
"DonТt be ridiculous, Lieutenant," Harlow said. He headed for the door. "IТm going to demand that Admiral Tallanis return you to the Orion Maru immediately."
"ItТs a little late for that," said Rafferty. "We just entered Freespace."
Harlow stopped. "I know. I just felt the shift."
"So it looks as if weТre stuck with one another," Rafferty replied. "Besides, if you go telling the admiral that weТre a bit more enlightened than the Vasudan culture when it comes to equality between the sexes, and that youТre not going to accept the, uh, СarrangementsТ that he had in mind, he might decide that IТm just so much unnecessary baggage, if you get my drift. Maybe he wonТt put me out an airlock, but IТd just as soon not have to find out."
"Good point," said Harlow. "HeТs not exactly consistent with his logic."
"Oh, and thereТs only one sleeping cubicle in here."
"Yeh." Harlow grimaced. "Well, that would have to figure, wouldnТt it?"
"YouТre senior officer," she said. "IТll take the floor."