"Jack McKinney - Robotech 16 - World Killers" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinney Jack)

check on his wife yet again. "Veidt's gotten final landing approval," Max told them. He hesitated,
then added, "They'll keep their word, don't you think? The Invid, I mean?"
Jean Grant, attending her patients, avoided eye contact with Max; she didn't want to lie,
and she didn't want to voice her doubts. Secretly, she thought it was only a fifty-fifty
possibility that Miriya or any of them would be cured-or that anybody on the shuttle would survive
the visit to Haydon IV.
Vince turned to Max and said, "they'd better."
The shuttle came in low over Glike, the principal Haydonite population center. The city
looked like something out of the Arabian Nights-so fabulous that they momentarily forgot their
fears. Some of the architectural styles had been borrowed from other worlds-Tiresian columns and
friezes; Spherisian crystal palaces; Praxian statuary and totems. But most of Glike was uniquely
Haydonite: slender minarets and spires, fantastic white-frost gingerbread mansions, lacy elfin
halls that seemed to shine with an inner light.
Besides flying craft like Veidt's, there were machines from the various worlds that traded
with Haydon IV, and different forms of Haydonite ship. Jean spotted one, on a scope, that reminded
her of a pilot whale with great, flipperlike wings-all curves and a bulging transparent passenger
compartment.
There were also flying carpets, or what looked enough like them to make her think of
Scheherazade.
Just then Veidt and Sarna appeared from the flight deck, where they had been guiding Wolff
in his landing approach. They looked as unearthly and remote as ever, robed and floating a few
inches off the deck, their faces as featureless as those of unfinished mannequins.
"We'll be landing soon," Veidt said in that weird, whispery, processed-sounding voice. "I
think you would do well to prepare yourselves and your patients."
Max returned to the pilot's seat and handled the touchdown with an assist from Colonel
Wolff. Cabell and Sarna looked on. Haydon Control had directed them to a landing stage in the
middle of the city, one of a number of platforms of smoky blue glass sprouting from a central
tower.


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A reception committee had already appeared to meet them, standing together on a flying
carpet that hovered a few yards above the landing surface. As Vince, Max, and Wolff opened the
hatch, the carpet floated toward them and stopped a foot or so off the platform.
As had been agreed, Veidt and Sarna went first to greet the half-dozen Haydonites waiting
on the carpet-or, more precisely, floating just off it. Jonathan Wolff took advantage of the
moment to look the flying carpet over.
The carpet was thicker than the ones from the tales. It resembled an undulating judo mat,
yet it was textured and decorated with exotic, iridescent patterns. It was vaguely rectangular,
but he could see that it tended to shift and change conformation. Moreover, the other carpets,
sailing around over the city came in many shapes and dimensions, from one-passenger welcome mats
to dance-floor-size.
Veidt and Sarna exchanged ritualistic and dignified bows with their people. Since
Haydonites lacked arms as well as faces-and legs too, Wolff supposed (although nobody he knew of
had ever gotten a look under those hovering robe hems to find out what was underneath them)-the
whole ceremony had a reserved, inhuman look to it.
Wolff found that he could tell the males and females apart. The Haydonite men's faces had
angular planes, and saucer-size, gemlike things displayed on their robes.