"David Weber - Empire of Man 02 - March to the Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

freezing temperatures as long as they don't stay that way too long. However, that's terrestrial." He
shrugged again. "With Mardukans, Captain, your guess is probably as good as mine. I'm a doc, not an
exobiologist."
He looked around at the camp, and especially at the flar-ta.
"The packbeasts, now, they seem to be better adapted. They burrowed underground last night on
first watch and stayed there till things warmed back up. And their skin is different from the Mardukans',
scaled and dry where the Mardukans' is smooth and mucous-coated. So I think the packbeasts can
make it, if we stay below the freezing line. But I don't know about the locals," he finished unhappily,
gesturing at Cord and the lead mahout.
They had been speaking in the dialect of Q'Nkok so that the two Mardukan representatives could
follow the conversation. Now Cord clapped his hands and leaned forward.
"I can withstand the conditions of last night with dinshon exercises. However," he waved a true-hand
at D'Len Pah, "the mahouts are not trained in them. Nor are any of my nephews, except Denat, and he
poorly. Also," he pointed to patches on his skin, "it is terribly dry up here. And it will only get worse,
from what Shaman Dobrescu says."
"So," said Pahner. "We have a problem."
 "Yes," D'Len Pah said. The old mahout looked terrible in the light of midmorning. Part of that was the
same dry patches that affected Cord, but the greater part was bitter shame. "We cannot do this much
longer, Lord Pahner, Prince Roger. This is a terrible, terrible place. There is no air to breathe. The wind
is as dry as sand. The cold is fierce and terrible." He looked up from the scratches he'd been making on
the ground with his mahout stick. "We . . . cannot go any farther."
Pahner looked over at Roger and cleared his throat.
"D'Len Pah, we must cross these mountains. We must reach the far coast, or we will surely die. And
we cannot leave our gear." He looked up at the towering peaks. "Nor can we carry it over the mountains
without the flar-ta. It's not like we can call Harendra Mukerji for a resupply."
The lead mahout looked around nervously. "Lord Pahner . . ."
"Calmly, D'Len," Roger said. "Calmly. We won't take them from you. We aren't brigands."
"I know that, Prince Roger." The mahout clapped his hands in agreement. "But . . . it is a fearsome
thing."
"We could . . ." Despreaux started to say, then stopped. With the loss of most of the senior NCOs,
she was being groomed for the Third Platoon platoon sergeant's position. This was the first time she'd
been included in one of the staff meetings, so she was nervous about making her suggestion.
"Go ahead," Eleanora O'Casey said with a nod, and the sergeant gave the prince's chief of staff a
brief glance of thanks.
"Well . . . we could . . ." She stopped again and turned to D'Len Pah. "Could we buy the packbeasts
from you?" She looked at Captain Pahner, whose face had tightened at the suggestion and shrugged. "I'm
not saying that we will, I'm asking if we could."
Roger looked at Pahner. "If we can, we will," he said, and the Marine looked back at him with a
careful lack of expression.
His Royal Highness, Prince Roger Ramius Sergei Alexander Chiang MacClintock, Heir Tertiary to
the Throne of Man, had changed immeasurably from the arrogant, conceited, self-centered, whiny
spoiled brat he'd been before a barely bungled assassination by sabotage had shipwrecked him and his
Marine bodyguards on the hellhole called Marduk. For the most part, Pahner was prepared to admit that
those changes had been very good things, because Bronze Battalion of The Empress' Own had been less
than fond of the aristocratic pain in the ass it had been charged with protecting, and with excellent reason.
Pahner supposed that discovering that a dangerously competent (and unknown) someone wanted
you dead, and then coping with the need to march clear around an alien planet full of bloodthirsty
barbarians in hopes of somehow taking that planet's sole space facility away from the traditional enemies
of the Empire of Man who almost certainly controlled it, would have been enough to refocus anyone's
thoughts. Given the unpromising nature of the preassassination-attempt Roger, that wasn't something