"H. Beam Piper - Naudsonce" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

crowding up behind each other," Lillian said. "But it isnтАЩt sensitive or selective enough. IтАЩm going to see
what Ayesha Keithley can do about building me a better one."

Ayesha was signals and detection officer on the Hubert Penrose. Dave Questell mentioned that sheтАЩd
had a hard day, and was probably making sack-time, and she wouldnтАЩt welcome being called at 0130.
Nobody seemed to have realized that it had gotten that late.
"Well, IтАЩll call the ship and have a recording made for her for when she gets up. But until we get
something thatтАЩll sort this mess out and make sense of it, IтАЩm stopped."

"YouтАЩre stopped, period, Lillian," Dorver told her. "What these people gibber at us doesnтАЩt even make
as much sense as the Shooting of Dan McJabberwock. The real information is conveyed by telepathy."

Lieutenant j.g. Ayesha Keithley was on the screen the next morning while they were eating-breakfast.
She was a blonde, like Lillian.

"I got your message; you seem to have problems, don't you?"

"Speaking conservatively, yes. You see what we're up against?"

"You don't know what their vocal organs are like, do you?" the girl in naval uniform in the screen asked.

Lillian shook her head. "Bennet Fayon's hoping for a war, or an epidemic, or something to break out, so
that he can get a few cadavers to dissect."

"Well, he'll find that they're pretty complex," Ayesha Keithley said. "I identified stick-and-slip sounds and
percussion sounds, and plucked-string sounds, along with the ordinary hiss-and-buzz speech-sounds.
Making a vocoder to reproduce that speech is going to be fun. Just what are you using, in the way of
equipment?"

Lillian was still talking about that when the two landing craft from the ship were sighted, coming down.
Charley Loughran and Willi Schallenmacher, who were returning to the Hubert Penrose to join the other
landing party, began assembling their luggage. The others went outside, Howell among them.

Mom and Sonny were watching the two craft grow larger and closer above, keeping close to a group of
spacemen: Sonny was looking around excitedly, while Mom clung to his arm, like a hen with an oversized
chick. The reasoning was clearтАФthese people knew all about big things that came down out of the sky
and weren't afraid of them; stick close to them, and it would be perfectly safe. Sonny saw the contact
team emerging from their hut and grabbed his mother's arm, pointing. They both beamed happily; that
expression didn't look sad, at all, now that you knew what it meant. Sonny began ghroogh-ghroogh-ing
hideously; Mom hushed him with a hand over his mouth, and they both made eating gestures, rubbed
their abdomens comfortably, and pointed toward the mess hut. Bennet Fayon was frightened. He turned
and started on the double toward the cook who was standing in the doorway of the hut, calling out to
him.

The cook spoke inaudibly. Fayon stopped short. "Unholy Saint Beelzebub, no!" he cried. The cook said
something in reply, shrugging. Fayon on came back, talking to himself.

"Terran carniculture pork," he said, when he returned. "Zarathustra pool-ball fruit. Potato-flour hotcakes
with Baldur honey and Odin flameberry jam. And two big cups of coffee apiece. It's a miracle they aren't
dead now. If they're alive for lunch, we won't need to worry about feeding them anything we eat, but I'm