"Karen Traviss - Wess'Har 06 - Judge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Traviss Karen)

The brutal simplicity of the statement stung. Shan still found it hard to accept that there really were things
that she simply couldnтАЩt do. CтАЩnaatat had done little to disabuse her of the idea.

тАЬDo Ade and Aras know?тАЭ But her gut felt hollow, and not just because sheтАЩd just emptied what little
there was in it over the deck. Eddie wasnтАЩt here. тАЬIтАЩll find an ITX node. You go and do whatever you
have to. When are we landing?тАЭ

тАЬWhen Esganikan has completed her initial discussions with the gethes. And yes, your males do know
that Eddie stayed behind. They seem equally displeased.тАЭ

Gethes: carrion eaters. Sometimes it was descriptive, sometimes pejorative. But it always meant humans,
because the wessтАЩhar species didnтАЩt eat other animals. They didnтАЩt touch them, exploit them, or get in
their way. Eqbas just brought down civilizations that crossed their line of ecological morality, playing the
galactic policeman. Shan wondered whether the humans on Earth had yet grasped the full implications of
highly militarized vegans.

No, they probably hadnтАЩt.

тАЬOkay,тАЭ Shan said. тАЬItтАЩs not like IтАЩm going anywhere, is it?тАЭ

She made her way through the ship, fretting about Eddie. Jesus, he was just a journalist. The Eqbas
could invade Earth without him. But she was damned if she was going to do his job and act as their
liaison. Stupid bastard. What was he playing at?

No, itтАЩll be twenty-old years before I see him again, and that meansтАФ

SheтАЩd already lost everyone she ever knew on Earth, jerked seventy-five years out of time by the
mission that took her to BezerтАЩej nearly three years ago. Now she was facing it again. No Eddie. No,
worse than that: an Eddie in his nineties by the time she got back. And Nevyan, her friend, the wessтАЩhar
who saved her life, who never gave up looking for her body when she was adrift in spaceтАФsheтАЩd be
decades older too. But wessтАЩhar lived longer than normal humans. A lot longer.

Nevyan was staying on her homeworld. It was her duty, just as Shan felt hers was returning to Earth
with the Eqbas fleet. She had to be here.

To do what, exactly? You think one poxy human, even you, can make a difference to a fleet that pretty
well leveled Umeh?

The shifting bulkheads always made her feel like she was negotiating a hall of mirrors. She almost tripped
over the communications officer as an apparently solid sheet of material thinned and parted in front of
her, disorienting her enough to make her think she was falling again.
тАЬShan Chail.тАЭ The Eqbas put his thin spider of a hand out to stop her but he didnтАЩt actually touch her.
They were all scared of catching her parasite, unlikely though that was. тАЬShan Chail, you must adjust
more slowly. YouтАЩll injure yourself.тАЭ

That was the very least of her worries. Almost any injury or illness she could think of was simply
temporary pain; cтАЩnaatat could repair anything except fragmentation. She wondered if all the Eqbas
understood what the parasite could do quite as well as Esganikan did.

тАЬIтАЩm fine,тАЭ she said. тАЬWhereтАЩs Ade?тАЭ