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

moment of full-body shudder. "It's only thatтАФ"
"Study yourself carefully, Node Thaish," Nasst said, gesturing to the viewsphere, where the monitors had
Thaish's face and mated right foot frozen in tight close-up. "Observe the countenance you have displayed
for the whole of this jaunt. Most inattentiveтАФeven with both feet planted," the Inheritor muttered, "most
inattentive."

Thaish's eyelids flickered. Cautiously he scanned past Nasst, past the viewsphere and the expressionless
faces of the drive circle membership to where several of his own Station Six node peers stood suctioned
midway along the curve of the ship's featureless hull. Nasst's reprimand wasn't lost on any of them;
Station Six as an entity would have to bear the burden of the Inheritor's officially filed rebukes.

Thaish took some solace in knowing that his peers had already forgiven him the lapse. There wasn't one
among them who hadn't been discovered in similar postures this jaunt. It was a running game they played
with the monitors, who remained several points behind, despite the high score they had earned by
targeting Thaish.

Nasst had nothing but glower for the ongoing contestтАФan exercise he considered wasteful in the
extremeтАФbut there was little he could do to contain it. Like most Inheritors, Nasst refused to accept that
operational duties attendant to even the most complex of transdimensional jaunts left ample room for
stray thought. In any event, it wasn't as if a universally inattentive Station Six could impair Ship Nasst's
vital functions, let alone snatch the ship from jaunt and drop it back into space-time, into the thousandfold
potential horrors that lurked there.

Unfortunately, the discovery of Thaish's lapse had coincided with just such an unprecedented event.

Drive Master Ghone, the very cause of it all, lay sprawled on the sensor-studded floor of the interface
cylinder she had occupied for longer than anyone onboard could remember. It wasn't the first time a
drive circle member had expired during jaunt; but it was, according to all available data, the first time
unscheduled expiration had resulted in a power loss of such devastating magnitude. As if the dimensional
shift from translight to space-time weren't enough, Ghone's sudden demise had apparently depleted the
ship's drives of residual power. To hear Engineer Tcud tell it, the ship was effectively stranded.

"We have experienced a setback that may well qualify as a catastrophe," the Engineer's disembodied
voice told those gathered in the drive center. "We haven't adequate power to supercede time."

Relieved to see the viewsphere derezz, Thaish failed to notice that the drive circle members had left their
interface cylinders and were beginning to issue panicked cries. Nearly everyone else was laughing.
Engineer Tcud was fond of employing exaggeration to distress the Drive Masters.

"Return to your cylinders and stabilize yourselves," Nasst told the fiveтАФsuppressing a grin, Thaish
thought. "As for you, Engineer Tcud," the Inheritor directed to nowhere in particular, "I suggest that you
review your calculations. Plainly you exaggerate the effects of Drive Master Ghone's departure."

The Engineer paused to consider it. "Drive Master Ghone absconded with a substantial quantity of
harnessed energy, Inheritor Major."

No one was particularly surprised to hear this, though the drive circle members continued their railings.
The Station Six node peers had concluded long ago that Ghone was energy-infatuated; while alive she
had proven a constant drain on the ship's reserves, and the depletion attendant her departure seemed in
keeping with that hunger. Still, it meant that Nasst would now be forced to conduct a search for a