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

I could answer that. "Because the chances are you’ll need your own in a minute."

Jeru stabbed a syrette into Till’s arm.

Pael was staring at me through his faceplate with wide, frightened eyes. "You’ve broken your
arm."

Looking closely at the arm for the first time, I saw that it was bent back at an impossible
angle. I couldn’t believe it, even through the pain. I’d never bust so much as a finger, all the
way through training.

Now Till jerked, a kind of miniature convulsion, and a big bubble of spit and blood blew out
of his lips. Then the bubble popped, and his limbs went loose.

Jeru sat back, breathing hard. She said, "Okay. Okay. How did he put it?–You take it as it
comes." She looked around, at me, Pael. I could see she was trembling, which scared me. She
said, "Now we move. We have to find an LUP. A lying-up point, Academician. A place to
hole up."

I said, "The First Officer–"

"Is dead." She glanced at Pael. "Now it’s just the three of us. We won’t be able to avoid each
other any more, Pael."

Pael stared back, eyes empty.

Jeru looked at me, and for a second her expression softened. "A broken neck. Till broke his
neck, tar."

Another death, just like that: just for a heartbeat that was too much for me.

Jeru said briskly, "Do your duty, tar. Help the worm."

I snapped back. "Yes, sir." I grabbed Pael’s unresisting arm.

Led by Jeru, we began to move, the three of us, away from the crumpled wreck of our yacht,
deep into the alien tangle of a Silver Ghost cruiser.

We found our LUP.

It was just a hollow in a somewhat denser tangle of silvery ropes, but it afforded us some
cover, and it seemed to be away from the main concentration of Ghosts. We were still open to
the vacuum–as the whole cruiser seemed to be–and I realized then that I wouldn’t be getting
out of this suit for a while.

As soon as we picked the LUP, Jeru made us take up positions in an all-round defense,
covering a 360-degree arc.

Then we did nothing, absolutely nothing, for ten minutes.