"Steve Perry - Aliens 03 - The Female War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Steven)

Wilks nodded. "Worth thinking about, anyway. 'Course then the questions get worse: Who
designed the fucking things? Why? What do they have in mind?"

They stopped in front of Ripley's quarters. "I'll catch up to you and Billie later," he said. "I've got
some things to check out."



Ripley shut the door and thought about Wilks's secondhand theory. War toys? What insane species
could've come up with the alien design; what kind of war could have warranted it?

Her headache was coming back.



There was a knock at Ripley's door.

"Come in."

Billie stepped in and glanced around at the bare walls of the older woman's room. Efficient and
practical, like Ripley, who sat at a desk staring at the console in front of her. She looked weary.

"Hey, Billie," she said, swiveling in her chair. "Anything?"

"Eighteen military-affiliated, maybe half of them trained in combat," she said. She leaned on the
desk. She was on the tired side herself.

"Good. Wilks and I got some stuff from his hacker friend that looks promising, so we can get
started. We'll have to do background checks on some of these folks and get going on transportтАФ sooner
the better."

Billie smiled at Ripley's straightforward confidence in her plan. Must be nice to be so in control, so
sure of yourself. "Just out of curiosity," she said, "how did this idea of yours come up?"

Ripley shifted in the chair and looked suddenly uncomfortable. "You remember I said I had a
daughter?"

Billie nodded.

"Amanda. She was very young when I left to work on the Nostromo. I promised her I'd come
back for her birthday. I didn't make it."

Billie nodded again. She knew that part of it Ripley had spent decades in deep sleepтАФshe held the
record, as far as anybody knew. It had been a lucky accident that she had been found at all, drifting
through dead space. Billie wondered what it must have been like, to leave a child and come back to find
she had died as an old woman. A daughter older than your own grandmother. Awful.

"On the ship to Gateway, I thought a lot about her, her whole life passing by while I slept. And the
dreams of another mother who wanted her children back."
 Ripley shook her head and smiled. There was no humor in the expression. "Funny comparison. Me