"Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball - Acorna" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ball Margaret)

^Preface

The space/time coordinate system
they used has no relationship to

Earth, our sun, the Milky Way, or
any other point of reference we could use to find
our way around, and in any coordinate system we
use, they're so far off the edge of the chart that
nobody has ever contemplated going there, even
with the proton drive. So let's just say that they
were somewhere between the far side of nowhere
and the near side of here when their time and space
ran out, and what started as a pleasure cruise ship
turned into a death chamber. They are like us in
many ways besides appearance. They didn't want
to die if they could possibly avoid it; if they
couldn't live, then at least they wanted to die with
dignity and peace instead of in a Khievii torture
cell; and they would happily have thrown away life,
dignity and everything else to save their youngling,
who didn't even know what was about to happen
to them.




2 - ——' ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL

And they had time to talk; what amounted to
several hours by our reckoning, while the Khievii
ship closed in on the little cruiser that had run out

of places to flee to.

"We could offer to surrender if they'd spare

her," she said, looking at the net where their
youngling curled asleep. It was a mercy that she
slept so well; she talked well enough that they'd
have had trouble disguising their meaning from

her if she were awake.

"They make no terms," he said. "They never have."

"Why do they hate us so?"