"Richard A. Lupoff - Sail the Tide of Mourning" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lupoff Richard A)

Not so Jiritzu.

Again and again his mind flashed to the terrible scene inside the
passenger tank of Djanggawul, the moments when the surner meat, the
passengers whose payments financed the flights of the membrane ships
and filled the coffers of the sky heroes' home planet, had shown
firearmsтАФan act unknown on the peaceful, neutral shipsтАФand had briefly
imprisoned much of the crew.

Again Jiritzu relived the horror of finding his betrothed, Miralaidj,
daughter of Wuluwaid and Bunbulama, dead at the hand of Ham Tamdje.

Again Jiritzu relived the pleasure, the terrible pleasure of killing Ham
Tamdje himself, with his bare hands. At the thought he felt sweat burst
from his face and hands. His leg, where a bullet fired by Ham Tamdje had
torn the flesh, throbbed with pain.

He closed his eyes tightly, turned his face from the deck below him to
the blackness above, reopened his eyes.

Above him gleamed the constellation Yirrkalla, beneath which
Djanggawul had made her great tack. The colored stars formed the facial
features of the Rainbow Serpent: the pale, yellow-green eyes, the angry
white nostrils, the blood-red venomous fangs. And beyond Yirrkalla,
fading, fading across the immensity of the heavens, the body of the
Rainbow Serpent himself, writhing and curving across the void that
separated galaxies.

A drop of sweat fell from Jiritzu's forehead, rolled to the edge of one eye
where it stung like a tiny insect, then rolled on, enlarged by a tear

He looked downward, saw that the work on the deck was completed,
the lighter ready for his use. With heavy heart he lowered himself slowly to
the deck of Djanggawul, avoiding the acrobatic tumbles that had been his
great joy since his earliest days on the membrane ships.

He walked slowly across the deck of the great ship, halted before the
captain's lighter. A party of sky heroes had assembled at the lighter.
Jiritzu examined their faces, found in them a mixture of sadness at the
loss of a friend and fellow and resignation at what they knew would follow.

Nurundere was there himself. The captain of Djanggawul opened his
arms, facing directly toward Jiritzu. He moved his lips in speech but
Jiritzu left his implanted radio turned off. The meaning of Nurundere was
clear without words.

Jiritzu came to his captain. They embraced. Jiritzu felt the strong arms
of the older man clasp about his shoulders. Then he was released, stepped
back.