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

Jeru pulled a tactical beacon out of her belt kit. It was a thumb-sized orange cylinder. "I’m
going to try to signal the fleet. I’ll work my way out of this tangle; even if the beacon is
working we might be shielded in here." Pael started to protest, but she shut him up. I sensed I
had been thrown into the middle of an ongoing conflict between them. "Case, you’re on stag.
And show this worm what’s in his kit. I’ll come back the same way I go. All right?"

"Yes." More SOP.

She slid away through silvery threads.

I lodged myself in the tangle and started to go through the stuff in the belt kits Till had
fetched for us. There was water, rehydration salts, and compressed food, all to be delivered to
spigots inside our sealed hoods. We had power packs the size of my thumbnail, but they were
as dead as the rest of the kit. There was a lot of low-tech gear meant to prolong survival in a
variety of situations, such as a magnetic compass, a heliograph, a thumb saw, a magnifying
glass, pitons, and spindles of rope, even fishing line.

I had to show Pael how his suit functioned as a lavatory. The trick is just to let go; a slime suit
recycles most of what you give it, and compresses the rest. That’s not to say it’s comfortable.
I’ve never yet worn a suit that was good at absorbing odors. I bet no suit designer spent more
than an hour in one of her own creations.

I felt fine.

The wreck, the hammer-blow deaths one after the other–none of it was far beneath the surface
of my mind. But that’s where it stayed, for now; as long as I had the next task to focus on, and
the next after that, I could keep moving forward. The time to let it all hit you is after the show.

I guess Pael had never been trained like that.

He was a thin, spindly man, his eyes sunk in black shadow, and his ridiculous red beard was
crammed up inside his faceplate. Now that the great crises were over, his energy seemed to
have drained away, and his functioning was slowing to a crawl. He looked almost comical as
he pawed at his useless bits of kit.

After a time he said, "Case, is it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Are you from Earth, child?"

"No. I–"

He ignored me. "The Academies are based on Earth. Did you know that, child? But they do
admit a few off-worlders."

I glimpsed a lifetime of outsider resentment. But I could care less. Also I wasn’t a child. I
asked cautiously, "Where are you from, sir?"

He sighed. "It’s 51 Pegasi. I-B."