"E. E. Doc Smith - D' Alembert 9 - The Omicron Invasion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

"Your suggestion is no doubt motivated by thoughts of rescuing your partner," she said coolly,
"but it's nevertheless a useful one. Maguire said the slaves were being used to build some kind of base.
We're more likely to find the information we need visiting that than we are by driving around these
deserted cities. I trust you'll keep your priorities straight, though; rescuing Periwinkle is at best of
secondary importance compared to the task of gathering intelligence on the enemy's plans."

Jules had his own opinion of Lady A's priorities, but he kept it politely to himself.

CHAPTER 8

Slave Camp

Yvette awoke with a splitting headache and a feeling of total disorientation. The arteries in her
neck were throbbing with pain; each pulse brought a new stab to her mind. The world seemed to be
spinning around her, and it took a few minutes for her to realize she was lying still on her back on a lumpy
surface that turned out to be a pile of other bodies, some of which were starting to move themselves.

She opened her eyes and turned her head, and even that simple action produced a wave of nausea
she was barely able to control. She coughed a couple of times, and each cough produced new waves of
pain into her head and waves of nausea out from her stomach. She couldn't recall having felt this bad since
a bout of nipsum fever she'd had as a teenager. To overcome her sickness, she tried to focus her mind on
the world outside herself.

The place she was in was dimly lit, and smelled heavily of many unwashed bodies. The air was
warm and stuffy, and there were the sounds of other people breathing, coughing, gagging. At least one
person off to the left was experiencing the same nausea she was; there was the sound of retching and the
unmistakable odor that only multiplied her own queasiness.

People started moving amid groans of pain, and the floor of this darkened chamber became a
writhing mass of humanity. No one quite had the strength to stand, yet, but a few like Yvette were starting
to look around them and assess their situation.

Then suddenly a door was opened and the room was filled with the blaze of late afternoon
sunlight, blinding in its intensity to eyes that had grown accustomed to the previous darkness. The light
only stabbed worse into a head already throbbing with pain, and Yvette blinked back her tears, trying to
prepare herself for what might come next.

A couple of figures appeared in the doorway, silhouetted against the light. Even though she
couldn't make out any of their features, Yvette knew instinctively that they weren't human beings. There
was a slight awkwardness to the posture, a slight difference in the ratio of limb-to-body size that set them
easily apart in her mind. The heads were a strange shape, and not at all attractive.

One of the beings shouted something at the waking people, a word Yvette couldn't make out.
When no one responded, the being fired an energy weapon at the ceiling, flooding the room with even
more light and heat. The point was not lost on the people in the room; even as groggy and sick as they
were feeling after the effects of the yellow smoke, they scrambled to their feet and faced the door. At a
curt gesture from their captor with the gun, they marched out of the room, into the daylight.
 They'd been confined in the hold of some kind of transport vehicle, currently situated on open
ground. The place around them was a center of feverish activity, people moving about on various errands.
To the right and in front were long inflatable buildings, like mylar blimps growing from the ground. They