"Linnea Sinclair - To Dance With Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sinclair Linnea)

Slowly, she moved her arm, or what she thought was her arm, towards her head,
towards the black band that sat on her auburn hair like a halo. She brought the com
mike back into position.

"Ky?" she croaked.

The man made a sound that was a cross between a curse and a prayer. "McCabe,
are you all right?"

She tried to move her head around, inspecting the cockpit. Everything was dark,
her instruments dead. "Yeah, I think so. My shoulder's killing me, though." She
eased her face to the right, wincing as she did so, and saw the faint glimmer of
Rho'kharis's fighter beside her own. She wanted to wave but something was
keeping her arm from doing so.

She fought back an urge to giggle.
"McCabe?"

"Huh?"

"McCabe, listen to me. You've got to get back down into the seat. Do you think you
can do that?"

"Huh?" She shifted her body. "Yeah."

"Okay. You move down into the seat and strap yourself in."

She found her feet worked better than her hands. She floated, crab-like, in the
direction of the pilot's seat. It seemed to take hours. She was so tired. Ky's voice
kept waking her up, urging her to move again.

"It's cold," she complained at one point.

"I know, love. I know." His voice surprisingly gentle. "Your enviro-program's down,
along with other things. Just keep moving."

She sighed. "Ky, where's Alastair?" Her brother would know what to do, know why
it's so cold. She remembered the time she had gone mountain climbing with
Alastair, when he'd been on break from the Seminary. He'd talked about a friend
he'd made there, an instructor. He'd brought his new friend with him and
introduced the tall, broad-shouldered man as 'Captain' Rho'kharis. A widower, he'd
told his sister later when, she'd asked 'what the hell was up his ass'. Meaning, of
course, the taciturn stranger and not her loveable Alastair.

Widower. It was a death word. It hung in her mind, heavy and cold.

"Tamsin!"

"Huh? Yeah. I'm, I'm almost there." She groped for the armrests, her own arms
screaming in complaint. "It's broken."