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

found her yet. We had leads. Traf is great at finding things out. When we left
you, we went to Nevermind, Samanna, Lanatia." Every time, the story had been
the same. The descriptions came back more or less the same: "Small woman? Hair
like a summer's cloud? Saw her with three men. Stayed a few days." "Eyes like
frozen diamond? She look odd, yah. Miss her by two weeks." "That big spender?
Scandalously pink skin! Came off Hindilark, I'm told. Spent a fortune, then
just as quickly redshifted. I knew she was trouble-not nobility at all!" The
last had confused the four who quested for Janja. Trafalgar Cuw had followed a
hunch or "hunch" and traced the Aglayan to Samanna. Yet at a stopover on
Lanatia, he had encountered this perfect description of her. "We don't know
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where she went from there," Quindy 41 told her former captain. "Even Traf
couldn't find out who owned Hindilark, or how she got onboard." Trafalgar Cuw
smilingly spread his hands and shrugged in uncharacteristic admission of
uncharacteristic helplessness-about anything, "It's just that-" Cinnabar's
words caught in its throat and implanted translator. If a Jarp could stammer,
the whistling sound Cinnabar made would qualify. "We just want you back. We
miss you." The others nodded in an embarrassed silence. They anxiously watched
the gray and tan woman in the doorway. "I was never a good captain," Kalahari
said slowly. "You all know that. I've been a detriment from the start and I
marvel at how I've lasted this long. I have a lot to learn before I'm worth
anything to anybody. Especially to me." Trafalgar laid a hand lightly on her
shoulder. She didn't shrug it off as she might have in the past. "Take all the
time you want to learn. Take everything you need. Just do it on Sunmother.
With us." Kalahari Cuw regarded her comrades for a moment, then gestured them
inside. "I'll probably stay in my cabin." "You won't have any duties," Quindy
urged. "No one will interfere." The thin woman who had been Captain Hellfire
was not immune. She licked her lips. Gray eyes shifted to look from Quindy to
Trafalgar to the Jarps. She saw only friends, and her eyes kindled. "Let me
get dressed." "Uh-we brought you something..." The box Cinnabar handed her
contained a stretch-fab jumpsuit, red, and a long black sash. Kalahari Cuw
managed not to cry. Within less than a half-hour, all four crimson-clad
members of the Satana Coalition-with the identically jump-suited
Sweetface-were on their way to the spaceport. 42 The days passed quietly.
Sunmother, piloted by the master ship-handler Quindy, plunged in and out of
"subspace" to wend its way through the gravitic landscape of the Galaxy. Stars
fled by in every color and variation from radio to gamma. At the behest of the
ever-enigmatic Trafalgar Cuw of Outreach, they were headed for Mirjam out past
Barbro. A few days and hundreds of light years from the planet, Quindy asked
the Satana Coalition to meet in the con-cabin. They found her wearing a royal
blue bandeau and matching pants, very soft and loose. "This is something I
can't choose on my own," she told them. She looked at each member of the crew
by turn. "Between us and our destination lies the Carnadyne Void. We can
either shift to standard drive and take our sweet time pushing through that
cosmic rock-and-dust quarry or we can take my shortcut." "Roche's Alley?"
Sweetface whistled a meaningless, untranslatable phrase and shifted from one
foot to the other. It referred to the gap between the two collapstars named