"Jerry Pournelle - Houses of the Kzinti" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pournelle Jerry)

Moments after the Weasel's intercom announced
completion of their jump, Locklear
was steadying himself next to his berth, waiting for
the ship's
gravity-polarizer to kick in and swallowing hard
because, like ancient French
wines, he traveled poorly. He watched with envy as
Herrera, the hairless,
whipcord-muscled Belter in the other bunk, swung out
with one foot planted on
the deck and the other against the wall. "Like a
cat," Locklear said admiringly.
"That's no compliment anymore, flatlander," Herrera
said. "It looks like the
goddam tabbies want a fourth war. You'd think they'd
learn," he added with a
grim headshake.
Locklear sighed. As a student of animal psychology in
general, he'd known a few
kzinti well enough to admire the way they learned. He
also knew Herrera was on
his way to enlist if, as seemed likely, the kzinti
were spoiling for another
war. And in that case, Locklear's career was about to
be turned upside down.
Instead of a scholarly life puzzling out the meanings
of Grog forepaw gestures
and kzin ear-twitches, he would probably be
conscripted into some warren full of
psych warfare pundits, for the duration. These days,
an ethologist had to be
part historian, too-Locklear remembered more than he
liked about the three
previous man-kzin wars.
And Herrera was ready to fight the kzinti already,
and Locklear had called him a
cat. Locklear opened his mouth to apologize but the
klaxon drowned him out.
Herrera slammed the door open, vaulted into the
passageway reaching for
handholds.
"What's the matter," Locklear shouted. "Where are
you-?"
Herrera's answer, half-lost between the door-slam and
the klaxon, sounded like
"atta nation" to Locklear, who did not even know the
drill for a deadheading
passenger during battle stations. Locklear was still
waiting for a familiar tug
of gravity when that door sighed, the hermetic seal