"Jack McKinney - Robotech Sentientals 4 - World Killers" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinney Jack)

 The shuttlecraft's deckplates vibrated under Vince's boot soles. "Jean,
what if Veidt's wrong, or the Invid double-cross us?"
Somebody had to ask the question. The fate of worlds was riding on what
the Sentinels would do. Moralists would say that the lives of four individuals
were as important as the life of a planet or the outcome of a war, but Vince
didn't have the luxury of dealing with the abstract.
He wiped the perspiration from Lisa's brow with a cloth and pulled the
blanket back up under her chin. He looked at the other stricken Sentinels.
Here were four lives that would come to an end unless the virtually
miraculous Haydonian healing crafts were brought to bear. But what might the
survival of the Hunters and the others cost?
The Invid sounded so accommodating-it could only be some sort of trick.
Vince drew a breath and smoothed out his uniform tunic. Given his size, no
one-least of all, an XT-was likely to notice the bulge of the Badger assault
pistols he was wearing in shoulder rigs under each armpit. If this was a trap,
the Regent's hordes would find out how expensive a pricetag such a seemingly
simple skirmish could carry.
Vince was not particularly afraid of death. He had long since figured
out his attitude about dying, and other people sensed his inner calm. As the
shuttle started to cut into Haydon IV's atmosphere, Max Sterling appeared in
the hatch, knotting his fingers together, and looked to Vince.
Max had left his place at the controls, permitting Wolff to take over,
and come aft to 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."