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

channel. Let me small this thing down and just scan
up and down at that freq. Stand by."
I would have done the same thing, except I hadn't
exactly paid attention during my techie classes in
radio-com. I waited, fuming, while Arlene made the
necessary software adjustments. I kept the aliens in
my scope, following their progress up the "road"
formed by our long skid to rest. Finally, she finished
tapping at her wrist and came back to me. "Here, plug
into me." I fitted my female connector over her wrist
prongs. A couple of seconds later, I started hearing
what obviously were words in recognizable sentences.
There was something damnably familiar about the
rhythms and pauses in the speech; I was sure I had
heard it before. Even the words sounded tantalizingly
close to something I could understandЧa little clear-
er than Dutch, I reckoned. If I strained, I could almost
make out what they were saying.
I realized with a chill that there was no almost
about it: I did understand themЧthey were speaking
English! But it was a harsher, colder kind of English,
peppered with utilitarian gruntlike words I had never
heard. I could even tell who was speaking by the odd
mannerisms they used when they made a point. Now
that I knew they were human, I could even see their
body-language expressions, though they held them-
selves with a studied limpness that irritated me. With
omissions, I heard an exchange between the sergeant
and one of the scouts.
"Are [new word] [new word]-destroyed ship?"
"Carried it [new word], sub-sir. Saw it [new word]."
"Was Fred; pattern-match was [new word], old ship
from [new word]. Should have [new word]-shot back.
Don't like this; something [new word]."
"[New word]-circle around impact [new word] and
[new word] from another-different quarter?"
"Power emissions? Moving infrareds? Radio or
radioisotope?"
"[New word], sub-sir. [New word] dead cold."
"Don't [new word] circle. Approach [new word] but
cautiously."
I could follow the conversation despite missing
every third or fourth word; they debated whether we
had been destroyed or not. Their voices were distant
and cold, as if they were discussing an advertising
campaign instead of a military campaign. They
sounded totally dispassionate, like perfect soldiers. I
tried to hate them because of what they had done to
us, shooting us down and nearly killing us all. But I
just couldn't. Right or wrong, they were ours, and