"Bc18" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry & Pournelle)

Beowulf's Children
Chapter 18

ROBOR

Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.
-ARTHUR WELLESLEY, Duke of Wellington

It was a power relay switch. One piece, carefully removed. The problem had to be diagnosed, and new parts brought from Electronics. No real vandalism, just a twenty-minute stall.
Justin was airborne, with Zack and Hendrick beside him. He was almost blind with anger. The entire camp was in a frenzy, and there was just no telling what could come of this.
Zack looked at Justin for the tenth time. "And you knew nothing about any of this."
"Not a goddamned thing, Zack."
"According to Cassandra, someone placed a very powerful disrupter in your father's house. More delay tactics. Who could have done a thing like that?" Zack's voice was cracking.
Jessica.
"I don't know, Zack. And I won't make irresponsible guesses."
"No, I don't suppose you would."
They headed into the mountain passes.

The alarm buzzer sounded. They had only a minute or two of juice left in the fuel cell.
Cadmann flicked on the radio. "This is Cadmann. Skeeter Twelve, calling Robor. We are almost out of fuel, and cannot return to land. Please advise us of your position for emergency landing."
Nothing. He repeated his message, and then sat back, arms rigid against the wheel, listening to the static.

Jessica heard her father's voice, and then heard it cut off. She ran down the corridor, just in time to see Trish turn away from the controls. "What was that?"
"A bluff," Trish said. "And not a very good one, at that."
"What did he say?"
"He said that his skeeter was almost out of fuel, and asked for permission for an emergency landing." Jessica's mind spun. It was a bluff. It had to be. A freshly charged skeeter had more range than that. But what if it wasn't freshly charged? Christ . . .
"Trish . . ." she began.
"Aaron ordered radio silence," Trish said flatly. "And that's what we're going to have."

A shock wave hit Skeeter XII, and they jolted to the side. Wind and rain and an ugly laboring in the engine all mixed together. They plunged about three hundred feet before Cadmann managed to regain control. Carlos wiped his hand against the windscreen, clearing away condensation, peering out. It was hopeless. There was nothing to be seen.
"I'm sorry," Cadmann said--
A flash of lightning, very close by, too close. It split their universe, blinded them, and Cadmann let some inarticulate sound of effort and anger and fear escape, and they plunged so low that they were momentarily out of the clouds. Another flash of lightning and--
"I see it!" Carlos yelled. "Damn it! Two o'clock. There."
An arc of fire rolled along the underbelly of the cloud, lightning swelling in its belly. And there, gliding like a great dark predator, was Robor.
Cadmann gritted his teeth, and took the skeeter up into the cloud again. "We can make it," he said.
"If we don't, can I quote you?"
They rose up above the flat top of Robor, and Cadmann hit the lights. They were dim, all emergency power draining to the batteries, but enough to illumine the top. There were docks for four skeeters up there, and three of them were in place.
"All right," He said. "I'm setting her down. You take the right-side mooring cable, I'll take the left. If either of us makes it, we're safe."
The engines quit.

"See?" Trish said, laughing. "No SOS. It was a bluff."
Jessica stared at the control panel, and then looked out at the storm. A bluff. She hoped it was a bluff. She freezing prayed it was a bluff. Otherwise . . .

They slammed into Robor's landing deck just as another lightning flash tore a hole in the sky. Robor jolted, and then stabilized. Its gyros would compensate, and keep the deck level. It was slick, though. They skidded for three feet before coming to rest.
Cadmann wrapped a mooring cable around his arm and reeled it out. He hopped down to the deck. The wind slammed into him, and Carlos was out the other side with the right-hand cable. There were docking rings countersunk in the deck in numerous locations. The trick was finding one.
A violent shudder struck Robor, and the skeeter started sliding again. Cadmann backed up, slipped to his knees, slid across the deck and toward the edge. The damaged strut collapsed, and the skeeter slid across the plates, right at him. He screamed as he went over the edge, the skeeter right on top of him.

Carlos was on his hands and knees, and his face smashed against the metal sheeting as the skeeter behind him crashed onto its side. He knew in that moment that he was going to die.
It pulled him toward the edge, and his knee hit the anchor ring. He scrabbled for it in the darkness, and found it, flipped it up, and clipped the line into place. It snapped taut in the next instant, and behind him he heard a scream, and a grinding crash, and he knew that Cadmann had gone over the side.
He was on the verge of muttering a prayer when he heard the groan.