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

then the fickle wind had blown the ultrafine sand
around, obliterating our tracks. As they began to fan
out for a spiral search, calling him repeatedly over the
radio, A.S., Sears and Roebuck, and I withdrew far
from the canyon carved by the Fred ship ... and even
that gouge was filling, starting to be hard to spot. At
two kilometers directly perpendicular to our trail, I
called a halt. I figured we were far enough along that
they weren't likely to find us anytime soon, now that
we had destroyed all of the prisoner's electronic tells
... we hoped.
I knelt down next to the guy. He looked vaguely
Mongolian and vaguely Mediterranean, a perfectly
normal human with black hair and dark brown eyes,
dark-complected, with slight Oriental folds over his
eyes. But from when? How far advanced was he over
us? We had left Earth some three or four hundred
years ago; I wasn't really sure of the conversion factor.
But when did he leave?
I drew my boot knife and rested it alongside his
neck. "Chill, brother," I said, then thought better of
it. Language had evidently changed in several
centuriesЧbest to avoid expressions as much as
possible, stick to basic English. "We are humans," I
said, indicating Arlene and myself. "We need infor-
mation. Why are you here?"
The moment he felt my knife, the prisoner relaxed.
He seemed resigned to his fate, whether it was death
or release. He listened intently, then nodded a few
seconds after I finished. "Yes," he said, with a strange
pronunciation of the vowelЧit came out like Yauz.
"No, you do not understand," I persisted. "Why
are you here?"
"Yes . . . weЧcame fromЧEarthground planet."
"I can tell."
"Cut the crap!" Arlene snarled. I drew my finger
across my throat, and she shut up.
"What was the reason for you to come?" I tried
again.
My prisoner seemed only too eager to talkЧ
something which always sets off alarm bells in my
head. I mean, why should he want to help us? "Yes.
We have arrived [unintelligible] to chase."
"What are you chasing?"
"[New word]. Aliens. When come you from?"
I told him the year we left, and his brows shot up
instantly. He didn't take time to calculate what that
was in dog years, so I presumed when he left people
still used the same calendar we did. "Taggart, Sand-
ers," I said, introducing us. "They are Sears and