"Jean and Jeff Sutton - Lord Of The Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sutton Jean and Jeff)

"A rather small sun," Zandro said. "Really quite insignificant. Your
native planet is somewhat smaller than Wenda and revolves around its sun in a
shorter period."
He asked faintly, "If there's only me, how did I get here?"
"You came in a ship."
"Alone?"
"The others who came with you are dead, Danny."
"Dead?" he asked tremulously. But, of course, he was alone.
"Life is a transient thing."
"How did they die?"
"The ship encountered trouble," Zandro explained. "It had something to
do with fuel and critical mass, but I'm not exactly certain what."
"How do you know?"
A long silence ensued before Zandro said, "Everything you've ever seen
or heard, even though you might not understand it at the time, leaves a record
in your brain. I read that record."
"Is that how..." He struggled for words.
"That I know your language, so much about you? Yes, that is how. You
have seen and heard far more than you could ever know, Danny, right back to
your earliest infancy."
Caught with another thought, Danny scarcely heard him. "But the ship
wasn't destroyed," he protested. "I can't see any marks on it."
"The ship you came down in is just a lifeboat launched from the big
ship. Did you ever wonder that it was so small?"
"It doesn't look small to me."
"Very small," Zandro asserted.
"Did it come down by itself?"
"It was automatically controlled." Zandro described how the lifeboat's
instruments had been set to detect the nearest planet and to actuate the
guidance and controls to bring it down into the atmosphere. When its sensors
had determined that the planet was habitable, the landing had been made
automatically. Otherwise the lifeboat would have sought another planet. "If
none of the planets within this system had been habitable, then of course you
would have died," he said.
Danny felt a great longing. "Why didn't the others come with me?"
"Perhaps there was no time. I'm not certain. Your memory pattern shows
confusion."
"What does that mean?"
"There was great excitement at the time. Your mind is filled with bits
of information, quite disconnected. I have a picture of a woman -- yes, it was
your mother -- putting you in the lifeboat, then rushing off to get your
father."
"Why didn't they come back?" he asked numbly.
"Perhaps there was no time," Zandro suggested. "I imagine the lifeboat
was programmed to launch itself automatically at the last possible moment."
Danny gravely contemplated the information. If Zandro knew that much, he
must know...
Zandro caught the question in Danny's mind and said, "It was a colonist
ship."
"What does the word mean?"