"Robert F. Young - The Star Eel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

She gives a nervous little nod. "And the only passenger."
"You're like me then."
"I thought Pasha's host was just a whale тАФ till I saw you. I didn't know it was a ship too."
"Would it have made any dif-ference if you had?"
"You mean, would I have stop-ped Pasha from attacking it? No. I told Pasha he could make his own
decisions in such matters."
"Pasha being the star eel?"
"My star eel. They enslaved him, and I set him free."
"I thought star eels were killed before they were converted into ships."
"They are. But Pasha was an exception. The converters referred to him as a 'noble experiment.' But I
don't think enslaving some-one is noble, do you?"
"When you freed him, why did you go with him?"
"I wanted to be free too."
He gazes into her earnest blue eyes, seeking some vestige of dis-simulation and finding not a trace.
"You were enslaved too?" he asks.
She nods. "My father is a converter in the a Andromedae IX orbital shipyards. Their union is so rich
and powerful that it controls the whole planet. Its members call themselves proletariats, but actual-ly
they're the haute bourgeoisie. They decide what should be taught in school and what shouldn't be.
Which books should be read and which shouldn't be. Which music should be played and which
should-n't be. They have square brains and tin eardrums and carry ships of ignorance in their back
pockets."
"Are you saying that the school-children of a Andromedae IX are slaves?"
"It amounts to that, doesn't it?"
He sighs. "I suppose so." Then, "What's your name?"
"Ciel Bleu. Ciely. I know why you wanted to come on board. You want me to call Pasha off. Well, I
won't!"
Easy does it, he cautions him-self. Aloud, he says, "I missed breakfast this morning. Do you think
you might spare a fellow spacetraveler a cup of coffee?"
"It's afternoon my time. But I can spare you one. What's your name?"
"Starfinder," Starfinder says.

The star eel's galley is small and compact. It has two magnet-lock doors, one opening into a
well-stocked larder, the other into a large formal dining hall. The eel-ship was meant to carry passengers,
perhaps as many as a thousand. At the moment it carries exactly two.
Seated across from Ciely at the tiny galley table, Starfinder says, "Pasha means a lot to you, doesn't
he?"
Solemnly, "Pasha is my life." "The whale is my life."
"Don't you have a name for him?"
"No."
"You should think one up." "Why, if he's going to die?"
A silence. Then, "I тАФ I forgot." Starfinder sips his coffee.
"What happens to me when he does, Ciely?"
"Don't worry about that. Pasha and I will set you down on the nearest inhabited planet. Do you
always go around dressed up to beat the band, Starfinder?"
She is referring to his white captain's uniform with its gaudy golden epaulettes and its seven tiers of
ornamental ribbons. "Most of the time. It's my way of setting an example for myself."
"What's that scar on your cheek?"
"It's from a two-oh-seven radia-tion burn. A whale that wasn't quite dead gave it to me when I first
went to space. I was blind for two years. That's why I became a Jonah."
"To get even."