"Fenwick, Keith - Skid 03 - Skid3" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fenwick Keith)

"Bruce! Are you talking to your dog?"
"Yeah can't you hear him?"
"What is this, some kind of nut house?" President Mitchell demand, clearly wanting to strike out at something but not sure what at. He'd obviously decided that the alien was too tough a target for him to tackle by himself and suddenly it appeared that the two people that he should be able to count on support from had lost their marbles.
"Get fucked," Bruce replied with a total lack of awe and respect that the President wasn't used to.
"You can't speak to me like that!" President Mitchell almost screamed, "I'm, the president of the United States of America."
"Do you think that means anything where we're going?
Raele wondered whether he had made the right decision in
taking on this leader of mankind. He turned back to the patrol craft's controls. Finding the female offworlders infant was a slightly trickier task than finding the male offworlders companions. At least one of them had a tracking device implanted so they could be located easily.
As the Patrol craft orbited high above the city where he had recently spent so much time Raele did a DNA scan.
Mrs Pratt was sitting in Sue's living room watching the drama caused by the President's disappearance unfold on the television.
Personally she suspected the Russians were behind the whole thing even though the Russians had long since ceased being a threat to anyone. She also blamed the Russians when she went into little Bruce's room and found his cot empty.
The police had different ideas, especially when they found her pistol and empty cartridge case on the floor of the living room and carted Mrs Pratt away to the station. It was several hours later after Ms Clarke and her mysterious 'fiance' couldn't be located that a possible link to the president's disappearance was made. A link that soon led to the authorities visiting a local restaurant where they found the drunken proprietor with a fantastic story to tell.
Little Bruce duly turned up on the floor of the space craft and Bruce wondered what Mrs Pratt would make of that, aware that unlike last time their disappearance would certainly be noticed this time, even as he wondered how it hadn't been last time.
Raele just shrugged his shoulders in the Skidian way when he had asked and Bruce now knew enough not to bother pressing him for an answer.
President Mitchell seemed to have settled down for the moment and sat in on the side of the corner of the room with his head in his hands. Sue sat further away with little Bruce suckling at her breast and Raele was headed for another wall where Bruce thought the accommodation area must be. Bruce looked at the three dogs that lay together not too far from his feet. Can and Punch had the usual expectant grins on their faces while Cop just looked at him expectantly.
"They are stupid," he seemed to say.
"Are you really talking to me?"
"You bet your black arse." Cop still hadn't quite got to grips with the English language yet but he was working on it.
"How come?" Bruce asked squatting in front of the dog.
"Dunno really," Cop replied.
"Hmmp." Bruce didn't really know how to handle the idea of a dog being able to communicate telepathically with him, especially one as cocky as Cop appeared to be. True to form the Skidians seemed to have done something carefully and precisely that made no sense at all.
"What are they going to do with us son?" President Mitchell asked tiredly from where he sat against the wall.
"Dunno mate, dunno at all." Bruce was well used to the oblique way that the Skidians operated. It had always frustrated him. Now that he had got his memory back, Bruce took a more benign view of those events.
"Has whatshisface said anything to you?"
"He muttered something about how I was a leader of men and he would be interested in talking to me some more about the development of self governing communities. I may be a politician but I don't know much about that sort of stuff. I'm a businessman doing my best to uphold the expectations of others and get some sanity back into our economy."
"Well it's not actually a bad place to stay, apart from the fact that you don't want to be there in the first place." Bruce realised for the first time that it was the fact that he was on Skid against his will that had made his stay so unpalatable, that and being told that he'd never return home. That he had actually got back home was an additional complication that Bruce didn't want to bother himself with for the moment. "And if you get comfortable with the idea that despite what they say they want you to do, the Skidians will do their best to make sure you fail."
"Sounds like what experience I have as a politician will stand me in good stead then, is this place really called Skid?"
"Yep really."
"You say that you have been there before?" Mitchell asked.
"I reckon so, Skid is a really weird place," added Bruce, without elaborating much to the disgust of Mitchell. "Didn't remember until I stuffed that little plastic ball in my ear though."
"You mean you didn't know until then?" Mitchell asked incredulously.
"Well I dreamt about things that I couldn't understand, "Sue piped up. Like Bruce now that she actually remembered everything she felt much happier. Finding herself on a Skidian space ship again didn't really trouble her unduly now that she and little Bruce, she and big Bruce for that matter were reunited.
Mitchell shook his head sadly and withdrew into his corner wondering how he was going to survive this latest crisis in his life.

two


Bruce spent much of the journey wondering where the rest of the crew was only to be told by Raele that there were none. Bruce had been looking forward to seeing some of his old friends, Cyprus and Mulgoon, maybe even Toytoo. Raele said maybe.
To Bruce's surprise Raele also showed him how to operate the patrol ship's flight controls. He was so absorbed with learning that it never occurred to him as to why Raele might be providing him with a possible escape route.
Apart from that, the trip to Skid was uneventful. Mitchell kept himself to himself apart from venting his fury at losing his clothes to a large robot as he had a shower and grumbling about the standard of food.
Bruce thought that the man had a truly bemused look about him and was about to make a disparaging remark about the intellectual calibre of the American President when Sue reminded him that he had worn a similar bemused look himself for much of the first few weeks that he had spent on Skid.
"It's just shock that's all," she said, "culture shock they call it."
"I seem to recall that you weren't too happy either," Bruce retorted. But he was also uncomfortable in his new knowledge that at times Sue had handled their previous sojourn on Skid better than he had. This time it will be different he assured himself without having any idea how different it would be.
Immediately they stepped off the patrol craft at the space port in Sietnuoc Bruce realised that something was different, sensed as Raele had, that something was definitely wrong.
The space port was empty for one thing, their own patrol craft was the only one evident in the vast open space and the subdued murmur that Bruce later associated with the hustle and bustle of an incredibly large city was gone. The only sound was that of their own footsteps on the cobbles as they made their way from the patrol craft to the port buildings. The dogs were subdued also sensing there was something wrong and stayed close to Bruce, dogging his heels.
"There's nobody here at all," Cop told him.
"There must be!" Bruce thought back. On the trip to Skid he had found that Cop could read his thoughts just as readily as he could hear them. Bruce was thankful for that because he felt a little silly talking to the dog and the sidelong looks he got from Mitch and Sue made him feel even sillier.
"There's nobody here you halfwit!"
Bruce aimed a kick at the cheeky dog but Cop easily skipped out of his reach.
"Don't you ever leave those dogs alone?" Sue protested on their behalf.