"David Weber - Worlds of Honor 4 - Service of the Sword" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

suspect that Mr. Lawler might. I'd like to make certain that Mr. Winton has at least a good night's
sleep."
"I support you on that, Lieutenant," the Captain said. "Now, tell Mr. Winton to get ready to
go planetside, and remind him that we expect him to do the Navy proud."
***
Judith had reasons other than her own crisis to set the Sisterhood's Exodus in motion.
From tapping into Ephraim's private communications channels, she had learned that envoys
from other star nations regularly visited Masada. She had also learned that some of those
envoysтАФspecifically those from an enchantingly named place called the People's Republic of
HavenтАФsought to win Ephraim's support in the Counsel of Elders with more than mere words.
Two of the vessels in Ephraim's privateer fleet, Psalms and Proverbs, had been offered
technological modifications. Much of what the Havenite engineers did to the two ships merely
improved their eyes and ears, but at Ephraim's insistence, their teeth had been sharpened as well.
Since the Havenites were eager to show how useful they could be as allies they had agreed with
few hesitations.
The modifications to both Psalms and Proverbs were carefully installed, so that the
alterations were not evident in a routine external scan. Ephraim said this was because neither the
Council of Elders nor the Havenites wanted anyone to detect the work and think ill of the
acceptance of advanced technology. However, such care had been taken to conceal the
modifications that Judith fleetingly wondered if the Havenites might suspect the dual use to
which Ephraim turned his vessels.
In time Aaron's Rod would also be modified. It said something about Ephraim's essentially
conservative nature that he had chosen to have ships other than his little fleet's flag undergo the
modifications first. As with many other captains and their ships, Aaron's Rod was an extension of
Ephraim's self and ego, and he did not wish that other self to be tampered with until he saw the
results on others.
Judith feared that such extensive changes to Aaron's Rod's systems could mean delaying the
Sisterhood's escape until she could learn how to use these new devices and then train her Sisters.
All of the women were without question brave, butтАФas could only be expected given their
Masadan upbringingтАФall but a few tended to follow Judith's instructions by rote rather than with
any intellectual comprehension of the tasks she set them.
There were exceptions. In the early years of their marriage, Ephraim had taken Dinah on his
voyages, and she, like Judith, had striven to learn something about the various departments.
Dinah's actual skills were woefully outdated, but at least she understood the concept of three-
dimensional astrogation and tactics. Many of the Sisters persisted, no matter how carefully Judith
explained, in visualizing their ship as sailing over a flat surface.
Dinah thus became gunnery officer and XO to Judith's captain. Dinah's eldest daughter,
Mahalia, a widow who had been returned to her father's house after the death of her husband, was
put in charge of Engineering. Ephraim's third wife, Rena, mother of many children, was head of
Damage Control.
Naomi, the second wife of Gideon, was put in charge of the passengersтАФfor Judith and Dinah
were determined to take as many of the Sisters with them as they could manage. Indeed,
removing the Sisters from Masada was the entire reason for this venture. The leaders were all too
aware that there would be no second chance, and that those Sisters who were left behind would
be intensively and painfully interrogated if their connection to the rebels was in the least
suspected.
Judith knew nothing of the specific escape plans for the majority of the Sisters. That stage of
the process was in Dinah's hands. Judith did know that there were multiple plans for each Sister,
and that in most households only one or two women at most needed to slip away. Ephraim's
household was extraordinary in its concentrated membership in the Sisterhood, but that was