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