"ab Hugh, Dafydd & Linaweaver, Brad - Doom 04 - Endgame 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (ab Hugh Dafydd)

I heard a strange, faint buzz in my earpiece as we
headed back toward the ship . . . sounds, voices al-
most. I could nearly believe they were whispers from
the Fred ghosts, desperately trying to communicate—
perhaps still fighting the final battle that had de-
stroyed them. I was now convinced that there was not
a single artichoke-headed Fred left intact on that
planet, except for the corpses we brought with us—
corpses we would never revive. In fact, I decided to
leave them behind on Fredworld; the temptation to
wake me dead, just tor someone to talk to, might be
too great, overwhelming our common sense and self-
preservation.
But the notion of ghosts wasn't that far-fetched.
Since their spirits never died, where did they go? I
began to feel little stabs of cold on the back of my
neck, icy fingers poking and prodding me. Jesus, shut
off that imagination! I commanded myself.
"Huh?" Arlene asked, jumping guiltily. "Criminey,
Fly, are you a mind reader now?"
I said nothing ... hadn't even been aware I spoke
that last thought aloud; curious coincidence that it
turned out to be perfectly appropriate. .
The ship was so huge that it was hard to recognize it
as mobile; it looked like an artificial mountain, three-
eighths of a kilometer high, over a hundred stories—
taller than the Hyundai Building in Nuevo Angeles—
and stretching to the vanishing point in either direc-
tion. The landing pad was barely larger than the
footprint of the ship, clearly built to order. Weird
markings surrounded the LZ, the landing zone,
burned into the glass-hard surface by an etching laser,
either landing instructions or ritual hieroglyphs. They
looked like they once had been pictograms, now
stylized beyond recognition.
"You know, Fly, we've never actually walked all the
way around this puppy."
"I know. I've been avoiding it. I don't like thinking
of how big this damned ship really is."
Arlene sounded pensive, even through the radio.
"Honey, Sergeant, I've had this burning feeling—"
"Try penicillin."
"I've had this burning feeling that we have to walk
this path, walk all the way around what's going to be
our world for the next nine weeks, or however long it
takes until we finally get... home."
I stared back and forth between the obsidian LZ
and the ship door, torn. "You're right." I sighed. "We
ought to reconnoiter. Arlene, take point."
"Aye-aye, Skipper," she said, voice containing an