"Bud Sparhawk - Alba Krystal" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sparhawk Bud)

misfortunes -- disease, hunting accidents, raiding parties of Federation ships, mysterious disappearances
and finally, this shipwreck, which was to have destroyed her as well.

She'd been put on the ship for a vacation at Antheray where her depression over the loss of her father
would have been cleansed by their skilled psychosurgeons and her mind restored to its normal clarity.

But along the way the ship's captain, a man whose family her father had saved from the organ banks of
Gault, confided to her that he had been given instructions to deliver her to that same planet where her
body would be rendered down into a loose assembly of spare and miscellaneous parts. Rather than do
that he shoved her into a rescue capsule, ejected it from the ship and then opened his engines full while
within two radii of a large mass -- Celphus III. Needless to say, she was the only survivor. There is
literally nothing left when a ship does that.

"It was my great-uncle who must have given those instructions. He's wanted me out of the way so he
could have clear control over trade. He's the one that wanted us to go into weapons, but we wouldn't let
him," she concluded and then lifted her tear-filled eyes to ours from her seat on the floor. "So you see, I
can't leave here. Anywhere I'd go he'd find me and kill me. This is the only place of safety that I have.
Please let me stay."

We made a little partition around Jack's section after carefully stripping away his pictures and souvenirs
of his debaucheries in the capital. Jack sure had a way with the ladies, what with his six-foot frame of
muscle and charm. I envy him. I used to look a little like that and didn't have half his success -- in
premodified days, that is.

The weeks went by as Alba tried to fit herself into our cramped station life. She used some clothes from
Jack's locker which were a slight bit large, but served well enough. She didn't ever have a word of
complaint either, which was a sign of class, I suppose.

She tried to clean up the place, tidy it up, at first but dear Alice had our floor plan ingrained so deeply
into her core that she wouldn't allow it to be changed in the slightest.

Next, our visitor tried her hand at cooking and promised us a gourmet feast we'd never forget. She was
right about that; Jerome was sick for three days afterwards, our first honest medical emergency in the
station. This pleased Doc no end for he finally had a patient on which to try the medical chest. Jerome
was less than willing to put up with most of Doc's proposals but finally did take some antacid and an
antidiuretic. We cautioned Alice to keep Krystal away from the food programmer in the future.

Still undaunted Alba kept trying to please. She even wanted to go diving with us but backed out when
she saw the four-feet cubed compartment inside the 'scaphs. Somehow the thought of being hunched up
for a week at a time at ten degrees Celsius under fifteen atmospheres didn't appeal to her. Hell, they
didn't appeal much to us either and we're only half her size and used to them.

"There must be something I'm good for," she finally cried one night in the galley. "I feel so . . . useless
around here. I don't want to be a parasite. I want to be of some use to you in return for letting me stay
here." We patted her hand and sent her to bed. Poor kid.

It was Jock who finally voiced what we all needed and wanted and decided to settle the matter once and
for all. He discussed it with the four of us in the galley and, when we agreed to try his proposal, called in
Doc and Jim who were mapping the P20 layer for our next dive, to see what they thought.