"Jack McKinney - Kaduna Memories" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinney Jack)

"Maintain present distance," he told the robot, while

Larissa recalled the interior view. "Adjust course to circumnavigate."

"Docking course locked on," the robot said.

Nugget rose from the chair. "Negate approach," he said more firmly.

"Docking course locked on." Chaplin waved at the camera again.

"Goddamned simpleminded machines, " Kakis muttered from the bridge. "That thing's on a fishing
expedition, Nugget. And you better damn well hope it's going to be satisfied with the little fish we
threw it. "

Nugget continued to stare at the screens in wonderment. All these years, he thought. All these years
we've feared and hoped, and now the first encounter was going to take place by proxy. Robots were
going to do the talking for humankind!

"Clay," Larissa said suddenly. "Mika has Bulkroad's response from onstation HQ."

Nugget turned to her. "Tell them to stand by to receive optical data. Priority scramble. Tell them we've
found something out here," he added, gaping at the RPV's exterior view. "A ship of some kind, maybe an
entity." He reached out for Larissa's hand and squeezed it in his grip. "Something that'll change the
world!"

Inheritor Major Nasst had ordered the Station Six nodes into the reception area as punishment for their
inattentive-ness. The small craft that most of Ship Nasst believed to be a nuclear device had been
ingested, and hung suspended now in the bright light of the docking bay. Its shape and texture harkened
back to the final days of the !Reitth, when such ships had spread death through the envelopes of Heregep
worlds.

"A harbinger of doom," one of the monitors managed to whisper before Nasst fixed it with a glower.

Ultimately the Inheritor Major allowed the craft to settle, after receiving assurances from Interface Assist
that there were no organics aboard.
Thaish saw and heard the uncertainty in Nasst, and it further unnerved him. Life suspension had been
expressly forbidden, but the compulsion to deanimate was so powerful in the reception area that even the
Inheritor Major himself was partially under its sway. Shivering as one, Station

Six was grouped near the starboard hatch of the alien craft; everyone was trying to hide behind everyone
else as the hatch raised.

What Thaish took to be Class Seven machine forms emerged, two on treads of curious design, the third
on two long legs. The head of the lead machine was rotating; Station Six cowered as the thing's lifeless
eyes swept over them.

"Attend, attend," Nasst began to shout at them, noting a commencement of cocoon formation among
some of them.