"Herbert, Frank - Man of Two Worlds (CA by Frank Herbert)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

I have encountered harsh information.

What happened to my perfect ship?

Once more he called out to Patricia but still the ship did not respond.

He thought he would even welcome one of her caustic lectures, if only she would speak. He did not want to be alone.

Where am I?

Ryll swiveled his eyes outward and locked them into place. He saw shadows, then bursts of light that brought pain and forced him to blink. He squinted cautiously and saw a dented silver-yellow bulkhead directly over him -- Patricia's control room but badly damaged. Destruction but not total.

He lay on his back and it hurt when he extruded an arm to touch the deck. Not cold . . . not hot . . . sticky stuff.

More memories returned.

He saw his ship emerge from the Spirals, felt again the excitement of that moment and . . . and . . . and then disaster!

Another ship occupied the emergent space!

The effect was not just a collision but a massive attempt by two large objects to occupy the same space at the same time. His control room smashed through to the center of the other ship, dominating the impact and telling him his was the more massive object.

When the first shudderings and boomings of the crash subsided, he heard hissings, clangings and snappings and saw emergency repair manipulators attempting to seal his area against loss of atmosphere. Fire! He remembered flames. That was what destroyed the sacred Dreen drive!

I am trapped here! But where is here?

He could still hear nearby sounds to suggest emergency repairs. This gave him hope. He rolled his body slightly to the right. Pain! He was a moment fighting off the defensive-ball reaction, every Dreen's instinctive response to danger.

Curiosity and a need to know sustained him. What were those two mounds stretched across a break in the bulkhead? He stared at them.

Badly damaged protoplasm! Bodies from the other ship.

Ragged bits of green and black fabric hid some of the shattered flesh.

Ryll took an interminable time extruding legs to help him crawl toward the bodies. His efforts hinted at terrible injuries -- vital organs crushed and severed. Too much damage for idmaging repairs, but those bodies at the broken bulkhead offered a way to survive.

Painfully, he reached the first body. He recognized the shape from Storyteller accounts: an Earth human. The Earther was dead.

Ryll moved to the second body.

Blood . . . much blood -- some his own yellow, flowing and mingling with Earther magenta . . . and a clear fluid spouting from a bulkhead rift.

The second human still breathed. Ryll's left front leg crunched shattered eyeglasses. Agonizing cramps warped his flesh and the defensive-ball reaction tried to dominate him.

Can't let that happen!

This was no time to be immobilized and helpless.

The odd smell remained but he noted no more hiss of escaping atmosphere. What was that smell? Memory from a fully assimilated Storyteller account answered his question.