"Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 02 - Corundums Woman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

lock open, now, or we shall be forced to employ the cutter." Breaths were
sucked in. Tetsu and Suzuki watched while white spacesuit stepped back to
allow azure suit to pass. Walking awkwardly, clumping, azure suit went
forward. Apprehension slithered in like a constrictor serpent and twined about
the two Suyari crewmembers. Presumably it would be necessary only to set the
laser beam to its shortest range and burn a semicircle out of the captain's
cabin hatch, at the latch. That seemed simple; however, no one quite breathed
while any use of a cutter was made on a ship in space. Vacuum surrounded them,
an inimical demon lusting for their very existence. One slip, one technical
error on the part of tool or user, and the hull could be sliced open with the
ease of cutting into zucchini. The consequences of that were
unthinkable. White suit resumed his explanation: "For an engineer also to-be
computrician is unusual-and indeed most unwise, on a ship of h'mited
crewforce. Both talents might well be simultaneously required in entirely
different onship locales." Tetsu nodded while the golden-skinned woman stared
at the invader, impressed. A pirate! And the language he chose to employ; the
measured way he spoke ... a shark, she reminded herself again, with
incredulity. What had he been? What might he have become? "Would you please
now precede me back to our yellow-suited friend?" And his politeness! A
pirate! As they paced along the corridors that on spaceships were called
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tunnels, Tetsu turned his head to one side to ask over his shoulder,
"What-what sort of being is that in the yellow suit?" "One with six limbs and
an oddly placed visual 21 organ, obviously," the pirate said from behind
him, and added no more. Nor did Tetsu ask anything else. The exterior noises
continued, the banging of the ghostly revenant come for Don Giovanni. The
sounds were interiorly transmitted as eerie gonging sounds they all knew
originated on Suyarfs hull. The ship bristled with a sort of space-going
Spanish moss: long flexible cables made rigid by braces between them and the
variable charge running through them. They trailed back from the ship to make
it resemble some monster squid of the space-ways. To the end of each cable was
attached a crate. Some were big enough to serve as small houses. None was so
small as Suyari's con-cabin. Each contained a piece of heavy equipment,
factory fresh. In space, such parasitic trailing appurtenances had neither
weight nor drag. Unless it had a nice small but rich cargo it carried entirely
interiorly, a merchanter on a run between the stars was no pretty sight. Even
more than a squid, it resembled a big ungainly bird that had flown through
even bigger cobwebs laden with insects and had flown on, untidily festooned
and trailing all that detritus. Now, Tetsu and Suzuki knew, cable linkages
were being detached from their Suyari and transferred to receptacles mounted
on the hull of the sharkship. Assuming at least two for that chore and another
standing by inside the ship, white suit's crew must include at least six
persons. No, make that individuals. Surely no person was standing there so
silently and unpleasantly menacing in that yellow spacesuit made for a
giant! Suzuki and Tetsu stayed well away from it while they waited the few
minutes necessary for Prithvi to find the proper cassette. He did, and
inserted it. SIPA-CUM took note and a tiny part of its capability released