"Niven, Larry - Tales of Known Space 02+03 - Protector 1.0b" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

He was having second thoughts. Surely the Belt government could have organized a better meeting than this...

The trailing pod-- he'd had a good look as it eased past. It was egg shaped, perhaps sixty feet long by forty feet through. The big end, facing away from the drive section, was so uniformly pitted with dust grains that it looked sandblasted. The small end was pointed and smooth, almost shiny. Brennan nodded to himself. A rarnscoop field would have protected the forward end from micro-meteoroids during acceleration. During deceleration its training position would have done the same.

There were no breaks in the egg.

There was motion within the bulging iris of the center section. Brennan strained, trying to see more... but nothing more happened.

It was a peculiar way to build a ship, he thought. The center pod must be the life support system, if only because it had a porthole and the trailing pod did not. And the drive was dangerously radioactive; otherwise why string the ship out like this? But that meant that the lifesystem was positioned to protect the trailing pod from the drive radiation. Whatever was in that trailing pod must be more important than the pilot, in the opinion of the pilot.

Either that, or the pilot and the designer had both been inept or insane.

The Outsider ship was motionless now, its drive going cold, its lifesystem section a few hundred feet away. Brennan waited.

I'm being chauvinistic, he told himself. I can't judge an alien's sanity by Belt standards, can I?

His lip curled. Sure I can. That ship is badly designed.

The alien stepped out onto its hull.

Every muscle in Brennan jerked as he saw it. The alien was a biped; it looked human enough from here. But it had stepped through the porthole. It stood on its own hull, motionless, waiting.

It had two arms, one head, two legs. It used a pressure suit. It carried a weapon-- or a reaction pistol; there was no way to tell. But Brennan saw no backpac. A reaction pistol takes a deal more skill than a jet backpac. Who would use one in open spare?

What the Finagle was it waiting for?

Of course. For Brennan.

For a wild moment he considered starting the drive now, get out of here before it was too late! Cursing his fear, Brennan moved deliberately to the door. The men who built singleships built as cheaply as possible. His ship had no airlock; there was just the door, and pumps to evacuate the lifesystem. Brennan's suit was tight. All he had to do was open the door.

He stepped outside on sandal magnets.

The seconds stretched away as Brennan and the Outsider examined each other. It looks human enough, Brennan thought. Biped. Head on top. But if it's human, and if it's been in space long enough to build a starship, it can't be as inept as this ship says it is.

Have to find out what it's carrying. Maybe it's right. Maybe its cargo is worth more than its life.

The Outsider jumped.

It fell toward him like a falcon diving. Brennan stood his ground, frightened, but admiring the alien's skill. The alien didn't use its reaction pistol. Its jump had been perfect. It would land right next to Brennan.

The Outsider hit the hull on springy limbs, absorbing its momentum like any Belter. It was smaller than Brennan: no more than five feet tall. Brennan saw dimly through its faceplate. He recoiled, a long step backward. The thing was hideously ugly. Chauvinism be damned: the Outsider's face would stop a computer.

The one backward step didn't save him.

The Outsider was too close. It reached out, wrapped a pressurized mitten around Brennan's wrist, and jumped.

Brennan gasped and, too late, tried to jerk away. The Outsider's grip was like spring steel inside its glove. They were spinning away through space toward the eyeball-shaped life support system, and not a thing Brennan could do about it.

***