"Kay Kenyon - Tropic of Creation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kenyon Kay)

At the mention of ahtra, one side of Sergeant Juric's face hardenedтАФthe alpha side that still bore normal
ex-pression. Eli would have welcomed his assessment, but the sergeant was wary of him. There was no
history between the two of them, no loyalty. Like the general's daughter and granddaughter, Juric was
merely hitching a ride on this quick run down through Keller Space.

Only now the shuttle run had taken on a differ-ent complexion. They both wished he could radio for
or-ders. Armistice or no, if you had a cache of arms down here, and God knew what ahtra surprises,
you damn well got your orders from Command, especially if you're just a stinking tub of a transport with
a tarnished of-ficer in charge, occupying a post a better man would have had if most of them weren't
dead or in regen baths. But radio was down, as Marzano had told them. If they hadn't discovered her
Mayday beacon in orbit, they would never have found herтАФeven though they had been looking for her.
The satellite wasn't broadcastingтАФ whatever electromagnetic interference disrupted the sur-face
transmissions also extended well into the planet's exosphereтАФbut on retrieval the ship's techs had
decoded its message.

Eli caught Sergeant Juric's eye, just long enough to lock on. "We get the kinks worked on that digger, I'm
sending someone down," Eli said.

Juric nodded. In the three months of their acquain-tance, Eli had never seen Juric show surprise. If you
were a veteran of battle, you didn't show surprise, not at an officer's order. If Eli had said, Take a
spoon, Sergeant, and dig your way down to that tunnel, Juric would have nod-ded in just that same
way.
"Let me send one of my people, Captain," Marzano said. It was her plea, maybe, for a chance to salvage
some-thing from Null. Maybe she looked at Eli and hoped to God she'd never fall so low. He didn't think
she would. Patrician Luce Marzano, of good family, of the right connections, looked a little different to
Command than up-through-the-ranks Eli Dammond with top scores, no connections, and a worse crime,
by some lights, than de-sertion.

"We'll see who goes. We'll see if we can go." He turned to Juric. "Sergeant, keep the tech teams
working here. Give them some backup for a complete scan of the tun-nels. See how far they extend."

"Yes, sir. And the ship?"

Luce Marzano's ship, the Fury, was still out there on the flats with Eli's crew combing its systems for
evidenceтАФ one way or the other. "Keep working," he told Juric, and Marzano nodded, relieved no
doubt that her situation wasn't upstaged by a more interesting one. "Box up what you have and transfer it
to the Lucia." The Lucia, a sweet name for his ship of command, which was little better than a bathtub
with fusion drive. And it'd be a full tub once its complement of 157 lifted off.

He heard a gentle cough outside the tent.

Juric cocked his head toward the flap. "Mrs. Olander, sir. Shall I send her in?"

"No."

Juric's face said, Got the balls to snub the daughter of the general, do you?

"I don't think she likes to camp," Marzano said, man-aging a wry smile, even as Eli ordered all her crew's
damn-ing evidence boxed and loaded up.