"Naomi Novik - Temeraire 1 - His Majesty's Dragon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Novik Naomi)

The ships had been brought abreast for the transfer of the crate; Laurence did not have to take a boat, but
only sprang across on the up-roll of the swell. Riley and the rest of his officers had already crossed back.
He gave the order to make sail, and went directly below, to wrestle with the problem in privacy.

But no obliging alternative presented itself overnight. The next morning, he bowed to necessity and gave
his orders, and shortly the midshipmen and lieutenants of the ship came crowding into his cabin,
scrubbed and nervous in their best gear; this sort of mass summons was unprecedented, and the cabin
was not quite large enough to hold them all comfortably. Laurence saw anxious looks on many faces,
undoubtedly conscious of some private guilt, curiosity on others; Riley alone looked worried, perhaps
suspecting something of Laurence’s intentions.

Laurence cleared his throat; he was already standing, having ordered his desk and chair removed to
make more room, though he had kept back his inkstand and pen with several sheets of paper, now
resting upon the sill of the stern windows behind him. “Gentlemen,” he said, “you have all heard by now
that we found a dragon egg aboard the prize; Mr. Pollitt has very firmly identified it for us.”

Many smiles and some surreptitious elbowing; the little midshipman Battersea piped up in his treble
voice, “Congratulations, sir!” and a quick pleased rumble went around.

Laurence frowned; he understood their high spirits, and if the circumstances had been only a little
different, he would have shared them. The egg would be worth a thousand times its weight in gold,
brought safely to shore; every man aboard the ship would have shared in the bounty, and as captain he
himself would have taken the largest share of the value.

The Amitié’s logs had been thrown overboard, but her hands had been less discreet than her officers, and
Wells had learned enough from their complaints to explain the delay all too clearly. Fever among the
crew, becalmed in the doldrums for the better part of a month, a leak in her water tanks leaving her on
short water rations, and then at last the gale that they themselves had so recently weathered. It had been
a string of exceptionally bad luck, and Laurence knew the superstitious souls of his men would quail at
the idea that the Reliant was now carrying the egg that had undoubtedly been the cause of it.

He would certainly take care to keep that information from the crew, however; better by far that they not

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know of the long series of disasters which the Amitié had suffered. So after silence fell again, all
Laurence said was simply, “Unfortunately, the prize had a very bad crossing of it. She must have
expected to make landfall nearly a month ago, if not more, and the delay has made the circumstances
surrounding the egg urgent.” There was puzzlement and incomprehension now on most faces, though
looks of concern were beginning to spread, and he finished the matter off by saying, “In short,
gentlemen, it is about to hatch.”

Another low murmur, this time disappointed, and even a few quiet groans; ordinarily he would have
marked the offenders for a mild later rebuke, but as it was, he let them by. They would soon have more
cause to groan. So far they had not yet understood what it meant; they merely made the mental reduction
of the bounty on an unhatched egg to that paid for a feral dragonet, much less valuable.