"Frank Herbert - Destination Void 1 Destination Void" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

"Look, you," Bickel said, shifting his attention to Timberlake, "you're
supposed to be crew captain on this chunk of tin and here we are drifting
without any hands on the controls at all." He returned his attention to the
keyboard. "You think you're qualified to tell me what to do?"

Timberlake went pale with anger. Bickel defeats me so easily, he thought. He
muttered: "The whole world'll be listening." But he turned away to his own
couch, jacked in the temporary controls they had rigged shortly after the
first ship brain had begun acting up. Presently, he sank onto the couch,
tested the computer circuits, and asked for course data:

"The Organic Mental Cores did not go nuts," Flattery said. "You can't . . ."

"As far as we're concerned they did." Bickel threw the master switch. A
skin-creeping hum filled Com-central as the laser amplifiers built up to full
potential.

I could stop him, Flattery thought as Bickel fed the vocotape into the
transmitter. But we have to get the message out and clear speech is the only
way.

There came the click-click-click as the message was compressed and multiplied
for its laser jump across the solar system.

With a chopping motion that carried its own subtle betrayal of self-doubt,
Bickel slapped the orange transmitter key. He sank back as the
transmit-command sequence took over. The sound of relays snapping closed
dominated the ovoid room.

Do something even if it's wrong, Flattery reminded himself. The rule books
don't work out here. And now it's too late to stop Bickel.

It came to Flattery then that it had been too late to stop Bickel from the
moment their ship left its moon orbit. This direct-authoritarian-violent man
(or one of his backups in the hyb tanks) held the key to the Earthling's real
purpose. The rest of them were just along for the ride.

At the sound of the relays snapping, Timberlake reached up to a handgrip,
squeezed it fiercely in frustration. He knew he could not blame Bickel for
feeling angry. The dirty job of killing their last Organic Mental Core should
have fallen to the life-systems engineer. But surely Bickel must know the
inhibitions that had been droned into the life-systems specialist.

For just a moment, Timberlake allowed his mind to dwell on the sterile creche
and labs back on the moon -- the only home any of the Earthling's occupants
had ever known.

"Man's greatest adventure: the jump to the stars!"