"George R. R. Martin - A Peripheral Affair" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

land, and so it carried in its capacious belly a small fleet of landing craft. Even the
smallest starships—the scouts—never entered a planetary atmosphere, although they
had only two small landing boats. The landing deck always adjoined a huge airlock,
which was where the debris would be pulled aboard.

It was already spread out in a clear space between the boats when Garris arrived. A
ring of crewmen encircled it, each carrying a sensing instrument. The third officer
stood by and watched them work

Garris looked over the small mountain of metal and plastic doubtfully. There didn't
seem to be as much of it as there should be. Moreover, it all looked like electronic
gear of some sort. And nothing looked damaged. He turned to the third officer with a
puzzled frown. “Well?” he asked.

The third officer looked equally puzzled. “I've got them checking it over again,” he
said. “The first readings don't make much sense, sir. No radioactivity, no signs of
fusing, no damage. Nothing.”

“Is that all ? I thought there would be a lot more. A scoutship is pretty big, after all.”

“That's another thing, sir. We've got several tons of debris here, but, as you say, that's
not nearly enough. The Defiance wasn't just blasted apart, by the looks of it. Most of
it is just gone. Vaporized. But you can't vaporize duralloy, sir. And if you could, there
would be some sort of vapor traces about. Have we detected anything like that?”

“No,” Garris said. He looked thoughtful. “Look,” he said, “when you've finished
your recheck, I want your men to go over this junk and figure out exactly what it is.
Or what it used to be.” He threw a last scowl at the remains of the Defiance , then
stalked back to the bridge.
****

Garris wasn't quite sure what he had expected to find when the snarled debris had
been identified and pieced together. But whatever it was, it wasn't what he found. He
listened to the third officer's report with growing amusement and immediately got on
a beam to Admiral Mandel's headquarters at New Victory.

Mandel frowned out of the viewscreen eagerly. “What was it?” he asked.
“KwanDellan attack?”

Garris shook his head. “No, sir. Not an attack at all, from what we can determine.”

“Not an attack? Then why did the ship stop signaling? Explain yourself, Captain.”

“Well, we located what's left of the Defiance . There isn't much. But what there is
hasn't been damaged at all. It's simply been—discarded.”

Mandel didn't like that idea. “Discarded? What is that supposed to mean?”

Garris waved the sheet of paper with the third officer's report. “We've identified the
debris, Admiral. We know exactly what it was. We've found the ship's computer and a