"Gordon Dickson & Harry Harrision - Lifeship Lp Ebook Txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

"But you won't want to wipe all the music to record, will you, sir? Please? We'll find some entertainment welcome, here in this little ship...."

Giles winced internally at the pleading note in the man's voice. Even an arbite should not have to beg like that.

"Not all of the music," said Giles, "don't worry. Pick an hour to wipe clear for me. That should be enough. If it's not, I'll ask you for more."

"An hour?" Esteven's face lit up. "Of course, sir. A single hour's really no problem, of course. This has a bit of everything. I can wipe some of the jazzpop or early-decade symphonies. Or there are lots of musical commercials..." Esteven smiled hopefully and the others laughed, and the laughter quickly dying away when they saw that Giles was not smiling with them. "Honor, sir, forgive—naturally, I don't mean that. A joke only. Here, an hour from the music; it's all set." He passed the recorder over quickly, his hand shaking ever so slightly.

"I'll put everyone's name into this; we'll need to keep records." Giles spoke into a recorder the names and numbers told so far.

"Now just you four left."

"Biset 9482. Supervise, indent one year." She stood up straight, across from Esteven's space, when she said it—the tall, angular, gray-haired woman who had led the party of survivors to tiie lifeship. She was, thought Giles, obviously used to authority. A lifetime had adjusted her to it—unlike the girl Mara. The two arbites side by side behind her were a dark-haired young man and an equally dark-haired plump girl. They had been holding hands until the others looked at them. The girl blushed; the man spoke for them both.

"Frenco 5022. This is my... wife, Di 3579. We're both comserv, indent seven years."

"Both just out of school, only on your first indent—and married already?"

The laughter of the others—free and open, this time— released a good deal of the tension that had been gripping them all. Frenco nodded and smiled and Di smiled, looking about, seeming to enjoy the sudden attention. She was the girl who had panicked when Giles spoke of the Albemareth seeking death, as a final act in space. Giles spoke their names into the recorder and looked beyond to the big laborer.

"Now you, lad." The laborer touched his index and second finger to his forehead just below the cap of short-cut black hair, in a sort of half salute before answering.

"Hem 7624, Honor, sir," he said. His face was square and young, unwrinkled, but his voice had the rough and broken hoarseness of an aging person. "Graded manual, no specific skills, sir. But perfect work record."

"Good for you," said Giles. "We're lucky to have someone like you aboard. Hem, in case we have something to do that takes someone with strength we can rely on." He ran his gaze deliberately around the faces of the other arbites and saw that they had caught the social implication of his words. A couple of them flushed, and some of the rest looked sourly down at the floor. The girl Mara, however, was not one of them. Clearly they did not like Hem being placed on the same level as themselves, but they would put up with it.

Giles held the recorder. Esteven came and took it back.

"All right," Giles said. "Now, I'm going to talk to the Captain and see what information I can get. All I know at the moment is that either we ran into something or there was an explosion, and we seem to be the only ones who got out of the ship."

"Over two hundreed people—human people—aboard, two hundred and twelve," Groce said hoarsely, tapping the figure into his compute as though to make it more real.

Giles shivered internally, feeling again within him the sharp teeth of conscience.

"And twelve alien crew members," he said loudly. "So we're the lucky ones. Just remember that. if things go badly. These lifeships are meant for survival and are a little short on comforts. You've seen how to work the cots. Those ib fruit you see on the vines are what we'll be eating, after the water has been pressed out of them. They're three-quarters fluid, so we'll have more than enough to drink. This plant's a mutation, gene-designed for this one function. Plenty of protein, so we're not going to starve."

"But, sir, how does it taste?" Di asked. Plainly, she had never eaten anything but prepared commissary food in her life. "Is that... it?" the gray-haired woman named Biset asked, sniffing sternly as she pointed in the general direction of the covered pail.

"I'm afraid it is," Giles said. "But there should be folding partitions stored in the floor or walls here somewhere. I'll ask the Captain. We can arrange something for privacy."

"Ask him why we went back for that other pruney." Now that the fear was ebbing away, Groce was beginning to show anger. "We could've been killed, all of us!"

"The Captain had to have a good reason for acting as he did. I'll ask him what it was. But listen to me, everyone. None of you, obviously, have ever been in space before; but I know you'll have heard dozens of wild stories about the Albenareth. Forget those stories—now! We're all dependent on those two aliens up front, there, for our survival. So the term 'pruney' isn't to be used again by any of you. Is that understood? Now, check those cots of yours to see they're all in working order, and keep your voices down while I go and have a talk with the Captain."

Giles had been watching the two Albenareth as he talked. They had taken the starbook from its golden wrapping and placed it in its ritual, jewel-embossed clamp on the control console. Some plates had been removed from the sides of the console and the Engineer was probing delicately in the opening with the whiskerlike prods of an instrument. The Captain sat silently, arms crossed, staring into the emptiness of space. Giles went and stood next to her.

"I would like to talk to the Rayumung," he said in buzzing Albenareth. The Captain slowly turned the glistening furrows of her face toward him.

"You speak our language."