"Mike Moscoe - Society of Humanity 03 - They Also Serve" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moscoe Mike)

The tales from the Landers' years were written dry, but there was excitement behind
every word. And they included space shuttles dropping down from the Santa Maria.
They left white trails in the sky, like a thin bead of clouds. And they made double sonic
booms. Above Jeff, the contrail headed east, headed for his sister or brother, away from
him. Jeff shook his head wryly. So what else was new? Then the contrail began to turn.
Maybe they wouldn't end up in sis's lap. "Ned, my horse."
A shuttle couldn't land in these hills. A town like Hazel Dell might draw them. Hell, Jeff
didn't care; a shuttle was headed down. Wherever it went, he was going.


Nikki glanced at the sky when she heard the thunder, but didn't quit hoeing her row of
corn, beans, and melons. Ma had not been as understanding as Nikki had hoped last week
when she and Daga came racing home well after dark. Da had been in a mood. Without
looking up from the new plates he was glazing for the public room, he'd said, "You work
the fields every day for the next month." Ma hadn't said a word in Nikki's defense. Maybe
if Nikki had been her usual self, she would have found a way to get Ma and Da talking and
herself off the hook. After watching a mountain vanish, just vanish, Nikki had been at a
loss for words. She still was.
However, thunder offered a chance for rain on a hot, dusty day. You couldn't work the
fields in the rain, but the sky above Nikki was blue. Pure blue, no clouds at all, about what
to expect in high summer. As Nikki bent back to her work, a streak of white caught her
eye. She looked back up. "What's that?" a boy next to her asked.
"Don't know," a man answered.
"Like nothing I've ever seen," a grandma added, leaning on her hoe and watching the
lengthening white line that was a cloud but not a cloud. If Grandma felt it a sight worth
watching, Nikki couldn't get in trouble watching, too. She rested on her hoe; there was a
lot of talk among the grown-ups, but nobody had any idea what it was. As the line got
closer, Nikki could make out something at the tip, no bigger than a pinhead. Then the
pinhead quit making clouds. It circled lower.

"Isn't it flying, like a dirigible?" a man said. He'd been to the big cities and claimed to
have actually flown on one.

"It doesn't look like one," another man said.
"Yeah, but it's flying. What else could it be?"

Nobody had an answer. Now Nikki could hear a shriek like something Grandma said
banshees made. But what was coming down looked too solid to be out of a story.

"It's going to land," the know-it-all announced.
Nikki came to the same conclusion at about that time. Some folks headed back for the
village. Nikki found Daga at her side.

"Let's go see what it is," Daga suggested.
"I'm not going anywhere with you. Try Emma or Willow."

"They're not talking to me."

"I shouldn't either. You're no fun anymore."