"Alexander Kazantsev. The Destruction of Faena (ГИБЕЛЬ ФАЭНЫ, англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

down and stopped. The doors opened automatically. Lada Lua, her normal
weight restored, walked out into the corridor, which seemed to tilt upwards
before and behind her. She did not, however, have to climb any gradients.
Ala Veg was rushing about her cabin, exasperated at the clumsiness of
her husband who was on his knees, unsuccessfully trying to pin some kind of
frill to her gown.
Lada Lua threw up her hands in delight.
Ala Veg unceremoniously dismissed her husband and he went off to
prepare the welcome for the approaching ship, which would have to refuel. He
realised that his wife was bored to death with the monotonous days and
tedious dinners at the common table, the faces that she was sick of seeing,
always the same ones, the same words heard so many times and the mutual
friction that grew worse from day to day. Tycho Veg tried to understand his
wife, to excuse her failings, to put them down to homesickness and to her
pining for her children. He was missing them himself. If only one of them
was here, they would be so happy! But the presence of children was not
allowed on the space stations. The Superiors, when complementing the staff
on Deimo, managed to oppress the roundheads there too. Nega Luton was
barren, Ala Veg already had three children and at her age, which she kept
secret, she had not decided to have a fourth. As a result, the ban only
affected the young Lua couple, who could not have children on the planet,
nor on the space station.
After helping Ala Veg to dress, Lada Lua ran to the kitchen with its
glittering pans and dials to boil, roast and bake...
But the communications bracelet summoned her again, this time to Nega
Luton. That important lady loved comforts and luxury more than anything. Her
husband, a Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard, had supplied her with all
these in full measure on Faena. Least of all had the Lutons wanted to go
into space. However, they had ended up there by order of the Dictator.
Lada Lua switched the automatic kitchen machines to a set program and
hurried off to Nega Luton.


When the spaceship Quest went into orbit round Deimo and approached the
station for docking, Mada and Ave never left the porthole.
The enormous planet Mar with its convex rim filled over half the
window. Sol no longer looked like a brilliant round star, but had become a
blinding disc with a magnificent corona. For a short while, the planet
blotted out its own star, plunging the ship into a swiftly-passing night.
Hand in hand, Mada and Ave greeted this unusual dawn of their new life,
waiting for the brilliant, curly-fringed Sol to begin rising from behind the
hump of Mar. The black surface of the deserts turned brown, and gradually,
according to height, there followed one after another all the most delicate
hues of a gigantic rainbow that did not hang over the rain-washed forests
and plains, as on their native Faena, but embraced the desert planet in a
crescent that merged with the rim of the gigantic sphere. Mada caught her
breath. She could only squeeze Ave's fingers in silence.
Then the rainbow glittered at one point and the Faetians saw Deimo,
their first destination. It was the brightest star in the heavens, rising
swiftly over the rim of the rainbow.