"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Alliances" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

“Yeah. After we go to some stupid planet no one has ever seen before, and then take
a route two years out of our way to get home.” Ethan sat in the chair he had just
kicked. The chair groaned under rus weight. “By then, all this might not matter.”
“It’ll matter,” Roz said softly.
“To whom?” Ethan asked. “For all we know, by then Galland could have retired.”
“It’ll matter to me.” Roz shoved her hands in the pockets of her uniform. “It’ll
always matter to me.”
***
They emerged from the nebula into a portion of space that Roz had only been to
briefly, during her last encounter with the Ba-am-as. This time, like last, she didn’t
have any time to explore. She had to fulfill her mission.
She couldn’t articulate to her staff anymore why she felt she had to fulfill this bizarre
quest. She had a hope, one she hardly expressed even to herself, that she would find
something that would allow her to get some kind of revenge on Galland-or, at least,
that would restore her good name.
Since the aliens who had informed Galland of the planet hadn’t bothered to name it,
and since it was uncharted-at least by the Alliance-Roz’s crew had taken to calling it
“Xanadu.” They all giggled when they said it, and then looked at her sideways, as if
afraid she would get the joke. She didn’t, and she really didn’t care.
The route they had been given took them into a new solar system. Most of the
planets were not marked on the map. The exploration urge hit her again, but she
ignored it.
She headed for Xanadu, hoping against hope she would find something she could
use.
Xanadu turned out to be an Earth-type planet with oceans and six continents-three
habitable to humans. The atmosphere had enough oxygen to sustain human life,
which was not a surprise, given the makeup of the planet itself.
Roz had studied her chart enough to know that the creatures she was seeking lived
on the small third continent. It reminded her of Australia, where she had been on her
one trip to Earth at the age of fifteen. From space, it had looked like an island, but
she knew that the land mass itself was vast.
She had her senior staff review the alien interviews- with all the blackouts-hoping for
a clue to what she was seeking. She also had the computer scan the surface, looking
for signs of a space-faring civilization.
It found nothing on the surface so, in a moment of frustration, Ethan asked it to scan
below the surface.
There the computer found catacombs that went on forever-all of them carved out of
rock and supported by metal beams: not anything that would have occurred
naturally.
It took three days to locate an entrance to the catacombs. Then Roz plotted the
away missions, breaking protocol again and deciding to go herself. She wasn’t going
to orbit the damn planet waiting for news. If there was something below that she
could use-or even if there wasn’t-she wanted to see for herself.
The fact that her crew was even on this mission was her fault; the least she could do
was shoulder all of the responsibility herself.
She went down in the first shuttle, along with ten crew members. Ethan stayed on
board, protesting the entire time. Roz took Ivy, Gina, two other security officers,
Tom and two of his most scientifically minded engineers, and a medical officer
handpicked by Belle.
Despite the atmosphere readings, Roz insisted they all wear environmental suits. She