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

would not suggest such an
obscenity. But that is probably the one chance your
sort has for personal
survival."
"My sort?"
The commander looked Locklear up and down, at the
slender body, lightly muscled
with only the deep chest to suggest stamina. "One of
the most vulnerable
specimens of monkeydom I have ever seen," he said.
That was the moment when Locklear decided he was at
war. "Vulnerable, and
important, and captive. Eat me," he said, wondering
if that final phrase was as
insulting in Kzin as it was in Interworld. Evidently
not . . .
"Gunner! Apprentice Engineer," the commander called
suddenly, and Locklear heard
two responses through the ship's intercom. "Lock this
monkey in a wiper's
quarters." He turned to his navigator. "Perhaps Fleet
Commander Skrull-Rrit will
want this one alive. We shall know in an
eight-squared of duty watches." With
that, the huge kzin commander strode out.
***
After his second sleep, Locklear found himself
roughly hustled forward in the
low-polarity ship's gravity of the Raptor by the
nameless Apprentice Engineer.
This smallest of the crew had been a kitten not long
before and, at two-meter
height, was still filling out. The transverse
mustard-tinted band across his
abdominal fur identified Apprentice Engineer down the
full length of the hull
passageway.
Locklear, his right arm in a sling of bandages, tried
to remember all the mental
notes he had made since being tossed into that cell.
He kept his eyes downcast
to avoid a challenging look-and because he did not
want his cold fury to show.
These orange-furred monstrosities had killed a ship
and crew with every
semblance of pride in the act. They treated a
civilian captive at best like
playground bullies treat an urchin, and at worst like
food. It was all very well
to study animal behavior as a detached ethologist. It