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

when the first Ba-am-as ship appeared.
Ba-am-as ships were slender and white, looking so light that they seemed to float in
space. The Ba-am-as never revealed themselves. Even their announcements came
through as audio only, and all attempts to look at their planet were blocked.
Roz always imagined that they looked like their ships, white featherlike creatures
without any substance to them at all.
“Message,” said Ethan, her first on this mission.
“What language we got?”
“Bad English,” said Ethan.
It annoyed her that the Ba-am-as had learned the language of the Galactic Alliance,
but the Alliance had never even heard the Ba-am-adian language.
Maybe language was just annoying her all around these days.
“All right,” she said. “Tell them to go ahead.”
Although she could probably recite the announcement chapter and verse already.
She still heard it in her dreams.
“Galactic Patrol Vessel,” said the flat androgynous voice that was so obviously
computer generated. “You are in Ba-am-adian space. We request that you leave it
immediately.”
She had two ways of responding. She had tried the first the last time she had gone
through and that had gone very badly. The Ba-am-a’s seemed to have no patience
with people who claimed that this part of space could not be owned.
She operated the communications array herself. “Ba-am-adian vessel,” she said.
“We had no idea we were in your space. We’ve been called to an outpost on the
other side of the nebula. We request safe passage to tend to our people.”
There was a long silence before she got the response, “There are no Patrol outposts
on the other side of the nebula.”
“There is one,” she said. She wondered how far she would have to take this bluff. “I
can give you the coordinates if you like.”
She hoped that the Ba-am-as could not read her star charts. If she had to send the
information, she’d use the least informative way possible.
“You are already halfway through the nebula,” the Ba-am-as said. “You have
guarantee of safe passage to the other side. But you must agree not to return through
our space.”
Great. All she was doing was putting off the inevitable. “That would require us to go
several light-years out of our way.”
“It is a small requirement to save your lives,” said the metallic Ba-am-adian voice.
Actually that was true. And it put a germ of an idea in her head, an idea she did not
have to examine until she got back from Galland’s mystery planet.
“We agree,” she said.
Ethan swore behind her, and she waved him silent. The rest of the bridge crew was
staring at her as if she had grown three heads.
“We accept your safe passage through the nebula and for it, we agree not to return
this way.”
There was a long silence on the other end. Then the computerized voice said, “We
shall hold you and your people to this agreement. Now, follow us and we shall lead
you out of the nebula.‘’
“Thank you,” Roz said and ended the communication.
Her bridge crew was still staring at her.
“That Ba-am-as said ‘your’ people,” Ethan said. “You don’t have the right to
negotiate something this big for the Alliance.”