"Steve Jordan - The Onuissance Cells" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jordan Steve)

“Cartier”. He was back home, in his chair, sitting alone in the dark room, a glass of whiskey on the table
beside his right hand. As he’d been for many of the last few days, now.
Grimacing to himself, he swept out his hand and knocked the glass to the floor.

“Dammit!”
Frank DeJaye jerked his head up from the newsscreen he’d been reading. It wasn’t that it was so rare
to hear an occasional curse in the Peacekeeper station. He was the usual culprit, in fact. But it was
incredibly rare to hear such an utterance out of the mouth of San Kepolis. Although Frank craned his neck,
he couldn’t see her in the commander’s office, where she was seated as temporary Commander of the
station. He finally called out, “Is everything okay, San?”
San silently cursed again, cursing herself, this time, for being overheard. She subconsciously pulled the
sec tablet closer to her, as if trying to prevent anyone from seeing the message printed on its screen. Then
she sighed, and put the tablet on the desk before her.
“No,” she called back, “nothing’s wrong. I’m just not as good a counselor as I thought I was.”
She looked up to the right, to the edge of the wall that separated the office from the conference room.
Frank was standing there, staring at the face-down tablet on the desk. “Matt?” San nodded. He stood silent
a moment more, before he whispered, “Damn.”

The huge propeller fans embedded in the wings of the Drake were beginning to spin under power. Soon
they would be losing their forward momentum, and switching to a hovering mode. That meant Midland City
was very close, now.
Thomas Beak took his eyes from his sec tablet for a moment to lean his head toward the portal. He
could just see the edge of a vast clearing, far ahead, but Midland was probably directly in front of the
Drake, and he could not see it. Presently, he turned back to the tablet for a few minutes more, before
stowing it in his shoulder bag.
Presently, he became aware of a slight change in the pitch of the engines, audible even through the
noise dampers. At the same time, the Drake angled and began a slow turn to port. Thomas looked out the
portal again, and this time, he could see Midland slowly moving into view.
 They had moved much closer to the city, and Midland filled the portal. The outer shell of the city was
round overall, but its surface was made up of numerous flat planes, open spaces, balconies and decks.
Many of the outer surfaces were covered with solar glass, which sparkled at some angles and appeared
almost black at others. The balconies and decks were usually lined with chromed railings or brightly
flowering bushes, giving a soft edge to the spaces. As the transport passed around the south side of the city,
its many surfaces caught the light and either absorbed it or threw it gaily back into the sky.
Thomas was sharp enough to know when he was being catered to. He tapped the button for the ship’s
intercom, on the back of the seat before him. “Pilot, you didn’t have to give me the scenic view... but I
appreciate it.”
“Hey”, the voice of the pilot came forth, “everyone should see ‘The Jewel of Namerica’ at least once,
Commander.”
Thomas smiled and nodded. It was an apt nickname, indeed, for this marvelous city, towering two
kilometers into the sky and spread over four kilometers of ground. It did have a more than passing
resemblance to a huge diamond, placed in a setting of grasses and forests, ready to show off to the rest of
the Solar System. As it was, it was a shame he was the only passenger on the transport to enjoy the view...
doubtless the flight crew had seen it many times before. But as he was hitching a ride on a cargo transport,
he could only have shared the experience with a maximum of fifteen others, the limit of their seating
section. Still, if it was as nice to live in as it was to view from up here, Thomas knew he would be very
proud to be stationed there.
There were a few smaller landing pads on Midland’s upper deck, but the large transport was headed
for the commercial pads, at ground level. They made up a cluster of larger landing pads, gathered just
outside a large open gateway into the city. Still a good distance away, Thomas could see the storage bays