"Williamson, Jack - 02 - The Humanoid Touch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williamson Jack)

"He's begging for help. Begging Bridgemen and fleet people for money they never want to give, because they won't believe the humanoids are out there on the Dragon. And I'm lookingЧ"

"Cyra!" his father shouted. "Aren't you coming?"

"A moment, Ryn."

She drew him closer, into her warm sunbud scent.

"Looking for a lost secret." Her low voice hurried. "A secret we need. You see, people came to Kai in a rhodomagnetic ship. Lance Mansfield's Deliverance. But he was afraid the humanoids would detect rhodo energy if anybody used it here. After the landing, he dismantled the ship and cut all the rhodo data out of his papers. But I can't believe he destroyed everythingЧ"

"Cyra, please!"

"He knew we'd need rhodo know-how if the humanoids ever found us. He must have kept some private record. We hope it still exists. That's what I'm searching for."

She stood up to go.

"A hopeless hope, your father thinks. Too much was destroyed hi the Black Centuries. But we're desperate for it."

Sobbing again, he clung to her.

"I must run." She bent to kiss him. "I hope you'll try to understand your father. A man alone, Keth, against all the hu-manoids. He can't spare much tune for us."

With an ache hi his throat, he let her go. He used to wonder afterwards if she had found that rhodo weapon against the humanoids, but she said no more about it. He didn't ask. Probably, he thought, she had no good news and didn't want to frighten him.


5

Malili The larger of the Cat's two planets, rotating in tidal lock with the smaller, Kai. Malili was settled by the mutant forefathers of the Leleyo, Kai by "normals."

When he had questions now, he was to ask Doc Smart, the new tutor Cyra had brought him for his birthday. A fat green box, not too heavy for him to carry. When he lifted the lid, Doc Smart's holo head jumped out, white-haired and pink-faced, smiling through queer, black-rimmed glasses, programmed to amuse and teach him. Doc Smart was never cross. He didn't have to mind, and he could ask whatever he pleased.

When he asked about Malili, the holo showed an image of two little balls, white on the sun side and black on the other, swinging slowly about a point in the air between them.

"Kai and Malili," Doc Smart said. "Chasing each other around their orbit, just like the Cat and the Dragon chase each other around a much larger orbit. Each keeps the same face to the other. That gives us one suntime and one moontime in each sixty-day orbital period."

Encouraged by that answer, he asked what killed his mother.

"Sorry, Keth." The rollicky voice didn't change. "Data lacking."

"Nurse Vesh says the humanoids did it." He watched the smooth pink face. "Are there humanoids on Malili?"

"Sorry, Keth." The shining smile never changed. "Data lacking."

He kept trying. "Tell me about rhodomagnetics."

"A mythical science." When the happy voice stopped, the smile stopped too. Both froze for a moment now, before Doc Smart finished, "Sorry, Keth. Further data lacking. Would you like a game of chess?"

He didn't like chess. Cyra and his father never had time for it. Nurse Vesh always remembered the very last game her husband played and began to cry. Doc Smart was programmed to let him win every other game, but there was no fun in beating a machine.