"Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 17 - The Carnadyne Horde" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

up to his full height of over two meters and raised a hand for silence. "If,"
he said, "there are no other interruptions, I trust we can get back to matters
of a more-realistic nature..." Damned short-sighted, intellectually incestuous
militarist bastards! Eks trod past the pressure seals in the space station's
spoke and strode into the umbilical connected to Eris. He thumbed the
hatch. "Ash!" he shouted, knowing that the inship comm to the airlock switched
on whenever the hatch cycled. His hair whipped about as he looked up at the
speaker grill. "Ash?" "Not oncon, Marek." Geb sounded annoyed. Eks opened the
inner hatch and continued to speak. "Get the ship ready to redshift. Inslot a
course to Lan-atia." He took a left turn down a walnut-and-prass lined tunnel
and headed toward the con-cabin. "Why Lanatia? I thought the Council would be
meeting for the rest of the week." 36 Eks reached the con and addressed Geb
face to face. "We're going to contact an investigative reporter for Galactic
News and take it with us on a mindrunning expedition." "What?" Geb stared up
at his captain in shock. "Kabeshunt. It's near Murph. Protected. The natives
are very close to achieving spaceflight. One little push from us and they'll
be all over the spaceways. That should make a great story." Geb turned back
into the mate's chair and touched his small hand against the stopper holstered
on his thigh. He frowned. "I don't think I understand. We've always kept a
zero-low profile." "Ask me later. Got the course inslotted?" "Firm." "Where's
Klyjil?" "He's, uh, occupied with Ash." Eks nodded without smiling. Switching
on the inship comm, he said, "Attention all crew. Prepare for departure in ten
mins and acceleration out to safe point for subspace entry in one half-hour.
Repeat-SPOSE in thirty mins. Destination Lanatia." He looked at Geb. "That
ought to give them time to.. .disengage." 4 You can't go home again. And if
you do, don't expect to find any fatted calves. -Marekallian Eks Space is
long, and wide, and deep. And space is achingly dark. The great darkness
threatens to overwhelm what little light there is in the universe and in the
expectations of humans. Yet, the dark is nothing. It is the light that is
everything. Many have looked into the light-spattered darkness of space and
seen reflected there the human soul. It was easier, in toward the center of
the Galaxy. There humans had ever seen a light, a Light; a great murky glow
that reminded ancients of spilled and spattered milk, so that they called it
the Milky Way... Galaxy, in their language. There lies the core of the
enormous spiral of stars and their attendant planets; there the stars are
thick as gravel on a rural road at election time. Far and far from that
glowing Galactic center lay the star called Sol, with its planets. The race of
sentient beings that grew and grew on Sol's third planet, Homeworld now, were
drawn to the Light. They left their world, they left the confines of their
rural sun and headed in, in toward the Galactic core and its gray hazy
light. The light was of stars uncounted, stars of a dozen hues and more
sizes. 37 38 Here humankind had found that light and warmth it sought, so
that the blackness was not, but was no less than grayness, at the least.
Humans settled the star-worlds that seemed so much closer to the center of
Creation. (So they told themselves, ignoring the fact that theirs was one of
many, many galaxies, all vastly far apart and all star-crammed, all with
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