"Timothy Zahn - Angelmass" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

truly awe-inspiring.

The trip to the command deck seemed to take an inordinately long time, even for a ship the
Komitadji's size, and to be unreasonably complicated besides. It added an extra tinge of nervousness
to Kosta's already mixed feelings about his place in this mission; and it was only as they switched
slidecars for the third time that it finally occurred to him that the inefficiency was probably
deliberate. On a warship, it didn't pay to make critical control areas too easy to get to.

The command deck, once they finally arrived, was just as Kosta had pictured it: a long room filled
with consoles and black/silver-suited men and women working busily at them. He looked around,
hoping to spot the captainтАФ

"Kosta?" a voice boomed down from above him.

Kosta craned his neck. At one end of the room a small balcony-like ledge jutted out over the
command deck. An older, silver-haired man stood at the railing, gazing down at him. "Yes, sir?"
Kosta called back.

The other jerked his head fractionally and turned away. Wordlessly, Kosta's escort led the way to a
lift platform beneath the rear of the balcony. The memory-metal cage wrapped around the platform,
and a moment later it opened again on the balcony.

The older man was waiting for him. "Kosta," he nodded gravely in greeting, his eyes flicking up and
down in quick evaluation. "I'm Commodore Vars Lleshi. Welcome aboard the Komitadji."

"Thank you, sir," Kosta said. "I'mтАФwell, it's..." He broke off, feeling suddenly like an idiot.

Lleshi's mouth twitched in a faint smile. "Yes; it is big, isn't it? Did you get your final briefing
below?"

"Yes, sir," Kosta nodded, trying to shake the feeling of being the new kid at school. "As much
briefing as they thought I should have, anyway."

Lleshi eyed him. "They were a little short on details?"

"Well..." Kosta said hesitantly as it occurred to him that sour-mouthing a military prep unit to a
officer of that same military might not be a smart thing to do. "They kept it a bit on the light side,"
he said, toning his comments down to something tactful. "I get the feeling I'm supposed to play a lot
of this by ear."

"You were expecting a script?" another voice put in scornfully.

Kosta turned, his throat tightening reflexively, to see a thin-faced man in a painfully neat, totally
unadorned gray civilian suit striding toward him from one of the command boards at the balcony's
side edge. "IтАФahтАФI'm sorry?" he asked, floundering for words.


file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Timothy%20Zahn%20-%20Angelmass.htm (2 of 374) [10/18/2004 3:37:36 PM]
Angelmass