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

while I inched forward until my head was caught
between the spongy material and the ship's hull.
It was amazing, a scene straight out of The Wizard
of Oz: when the Fred ship touched down, it landed
right on top of a dead alien! It definitely wasn't a Fred;
this creature looked more like an alien is supposed to
look: white skin, long multiple articulated arms and
legs, fingers like tendrils, not like the Freds' chopsticks
or Sears and Roebuck's cilia. I swear to God, this
thing actually had antennae, even. The eyes were
huge, big as the cross-section on an F-99 Landing
Flare, and Coca-Cola red; I couldn't quite see, but I
think they continued around the back of the head.
The face was turned toward me, and I got hot and
cold chills running up and down my spine, like it was
staring at me and demanding why? The mouth was a
red slit, and there was no nose—dark lines on the
sides of the face, where the cheeks would be on a
human, might have been air filters.
My heart started pounding again, another wave of
panic; I was staring at my first Newbie—I just knew.
After I calmed down a bit, I slithered sideways,
through my light; it was a bad moment when I
eclipsed the light, casting the Newbie into total shad-
ow. God only knew what it was doing in the dark. I
got far enough to the side to see the body and legs.
"You know," I yelled back, my voice still shaky, "this
thing doesn't look half bad. It's crushed a little, but I
think it could be salvageable."
Arlene yelled something back that I couldn't hear,
then she got smart and spoke into her throat mike
instead. "Can you drag it out if I throw you a rope?"
"I bet I can," I responded. I was never a rodeo
roper, but I'd been around a calf or two in my day. I
grew up on a farm and worked the McDonald's Ranch
when I was a kid. "Throw me the rope, A.S. I bet I can
lasso that thing and drag it into the light of day.
Kiddo, I think we may have gotten our first lucky
break on this operation."
We carried our gruesome trophy back into
the ship, plopping it down on the table right behind
Sears and Roebuck. When they turned, they stared,
eyes almost popping out of their skulls. "What that
is?"
5
"I was hoping you could tell us," I grumbled. I had
gotten used to Sears and Roebuck's galaxy-weary,
we've-seen-everything-twice pose; I was even more
shocked than the Magillas themselves at their confu-
sion. "Are you saying this is an entirely new race of