"Dafydd ab Hugh, Brad Linaweawer DOOM: Endgame (english)" - читать интересную книгу автора

walker's air, whether we wanted to or not. The
machinery that manufactured the nutrition pills was
back a kilometer in the ship and was probably
smeared across the landscape. So we would soon
enough be eating local food and drinking local water,
if there was anyЧor dying of thirst and hunger. Our
combat suits would serve as a limited shield against
radiation, but they would only mitigate, not negate
the ill effects. For good or ill, we were cast upon the
shores of Skinwalker, offered only wayfarer's bounty.
God, how poetic. We would either be able to digest
the local produce or die trying.
We picked ourselves up off the floor, painfully
peeling the deckplates away from our skin. Arlene
wasn't hit as hard as IЧless mass per surface area.
Our armor was pounded hard, protective value proba-
bly compromised but still better than zip. Despite
their chipper words, Sears and Roebuck had a hard
time peeling themselves out of the command chair
(which had survived remarkably intact). Arlene let me
lean on her shoulders, and our pilots supported each
other, as we limped to the emergency hatch. I pulled
the activation lever. Explosive bolts blew outward,
taking the hatch cover with them.
Shaking, we climbed down the ladder, two hundred
meters or more. It was a straight shot, not staggered
the way human ladders generally are: if one of us were
to slip.... I nervously watched Sears and Roebuck
above me, but I shouldn't have worried; their legs may
have been ridiculously short, but they were
powerfulЧall due to the high gravity of the Klave
homeworld. Arlene and I were more likely to slip and
fall in the relatively modest gravity of the planet,
about 0.7 g.
The world looked like the Mojave Desert, or maybe
we just happened to land in a desert area. I hadn't
gotten much of a look during the crash. I looked up.
The sky was too pale, but I saw oddly square clouds,
almost crystalline; we had weather, evidently. Bend-
ing down, grimacing, I lifted a handful of sand: the
grains were finer than Earth sand, fine enough that I
decided Arlene and I should wear our biofilters;
really, really fine silica can clog up your alveolae and
give you something like Black Lung Disease. There-
after, we spoke through throat mikes into our "loz-
enge" receivers. I don't know what Sears and Roe-
buck did when I pointed out the problem; they had
their own radio.
The brownish gray sandscape depressed me. Under
a pale sky, the only spots of color were the green and