"Baxter, Stephen - On The Orion Line" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baxter Stephen)

Nearby, I saw, trapped under one of the emergency bulkheads, there was a pair of legs–just
that. The rest of the body must have been chopped away, gone drifting off with the rest of the
debris from Brightly. But I recognized those legs, from a garish pink stripe on the sole of the
right boot. That had been Halle. She was the only girl I had ever screwed, I thought–and more
than likely, given the situation, the only girl I ever would get to screw.

I couldn’t figure out how I felt about that.

Jeru was watching me. "Tar–do you think we should all be frightened for ourselves, like the
Academician?" Her accent was strong, unidentifiable.

"No, sir."

"No." Jeru studied Pael with contempt. "We are in a yacht, Academician. Something has
happened to the Brightly. The ’dome was designed to break up into yachts like this." She
sniffed. "We have air, and it isn’t foul yet." She winked at me. "Maybe we can do a little
damage to the Ghosts before we die, tar. What do you think?"

I grinned. "Yes, sir."

Pael lifted his head and stared at me with salt water eyes. "Lethe. You people are monsters."
His accent was gentle, a lilt. "Even such a child as this. You embrace death–"

Jeru grabbed Pael’s jaw in a massive hand, and pinched the joint until he squealed. "Captain
Teid grabbed you, Academician; she threw you here, into the yacht, before the bulkhead came
down. I saw it. If she hadn’t taken the time to do that, she would have made it herself. Was
she a monster? Did she embrace death?" And she pushed Pael’s face away.

For some reason I hadn’t thought about the rest of the crew until that moment. I guess I have a
limited imagination. Now, I felt adrift. The captain–dead?

I said, "Excuse me, Commissary. How many other yachts got out?"

"None," she said steadily, making sure I had no illusions. "Just this one. They died doing their
duty, tar. Like the captain."

Of course she was right, and I felt a little better. Whatever his character, Pael was too valuable
not to save. As for me, I had survived through sheer blind chance, through being in the right
place when the walls came down: if the captain had been close, her duty would have been to
pull me out of the way and take my place. It isn’t a question of human values but of
economics: a lot more is invested in the training and experience of a Captain Teid–or a Pael–
than in me.

But Pael seemed more confused than I was.

First Officer Till came bustling back with a heap of equipment. "Put these on." He handed out
pressure suits. They were what we called slime suits in training: lightweight skinsuits, running
off a backpack of gen-enged algae. "Move it," said Till. "Impact with the Ghost cruiser in four
minutes. We don’t have any power; there’s nothing we can do but ride it out."