"Kay Kenyon - Maximum Ice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kenyon Kay)

Somehow, the land was inhabited. From her work so far on the content of radio transmissions, the local
language was re-lated to English. With her linguist's ear, she was already picking out phonological
similarities to Star Road's dialect. The lexical and syntactic changes from Ship's English were not as
pro-found as she would have guessed from the long time period involved. Given the harsh global
conditions and difficulty of travel, there may have been few outside influences to propel changes in
syntactical rules and vocabulary.

Additionally, from hundreds of points around the globe came transmissions, in many other languages. So
people had survived. It was well to remember these miracles amid all their sorrows.

For the ship had returned without children. Star Road's crew were as fruitless as the crystalline fields
outside. The youngest of her people was nineteen.

Earth wasтАФor so they had presumedтАФthe haven where they would renew themselves, the warm and
green cradle of life. There might well be other such worlds, but Star Road hadn't found them. And now
the ship was out of time. This might be the last generation of Star Road, with its women un-able to bear
children to term, the consequence of 250 years of interstellar radiation that not even the vaunted
microceramic shielding of the great vessel could successfully halt.

She was startled at a movement in the corridor.

Janos Bertak, the ship's first mate, stood in the doorway. "What are you doing?"

"Looking outside."

"We heard noises in here."
She laughed. "Well, Janos, it was only me. I hope I'm not breaking curfew."

Her attempt at lightheartedness was met with a grimace.

Janos Bertak had a full mustache that failed to make up for a seriously receding hairline. When he
frowned it involved his whole forehead and bald pate.

He was a nervous man. For one thing, they had brought the small shuttle down with only fourteen crew.
Anatolly had judged that the number one shuttle, with its prodigious arma-ment, would send the wrong
message to the local inhabitants, so he sent the small one. Another of the first mate's worries was his wife.
Janos Bertak was middle-aged and Tereza was young. She was a great beauty, with classic features, and
that creamy skin and red hair that graced generations of women and men in her family. Zoya remembered
Tereza's great-great-grandfather HalvorтАФnow there was a man who knew how to please a woman.

Janos turned to leave, but she stopped him. "Fyodor went outside," she said. "Could I join him, just to
watch?",

"I have enough to worry about without you going outside."

She couldn't suppress a smile. "Janos. Nothing would stop you from worrying." It was the wrong thing to
say. He left the galley without comment, moving on to the next worry.

Zoya took out the piece of crystal and rubbed her finger along its smooth side. Leaning into the comm