[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
The aristocrat, standing under the bright coloured lights near the centre of
the reception room, had taken off her shoes; her naked feet were half
submerged in the thick pile of the room's richly patterned carpet. Lebmellin
loathed such aristocratic affectation. He had to suppress a sneer as he shared
a joke with a popular and influential courtesan it would have been foolish to
antagonise.
He laughed lightly, putting his head back. Good; Kuma was just introducing the
Franck woman to the Chief
Invigilator.
A few minutes after midnight, routine repair work on a factory ship a couple
of vessels away from what had once been the Imperial Tilian Navy's flagship
Devastator resulted in a small explosion in the manufacturing vessel's bilges.
The Repair Module sensed the faintest of alterations to the dim hanging shape
of a distant ship, then registered the shockwave as it passed through the
attached hulls above, and finally heard and felt the explosion pulsing through
the water around it as it trundled quietly and softly across the mud towards
the old battleship.
The gas detonation fractured several of the factory ship's outer plates and
Page 50
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
ruptured the insulation of a main power cable, so that when the water rushed
in through the gaps in the ship's hull it shorted out the electricity supply
for several dozen ships near the heart of the Log-Jam. That part of the city
sank into darkness.
The Module sensed the electrical fields immediately around fade and die,
leaving only the magnetic signatures of the fabric of the ships themselves.
Emergency lights burned on the ships for a few seconds until their stand-by
generators took up the strain, so that, one by one, the vessels flickered into
brightness again. The Log-Jam's power supply centre - tapping the reactors of
dozens of old submarines and four of the eight nuclear-powered carriers which
made up Carrier Field -instituted checks to determine where the power line had
shorted, before it started to re-route electricity to the affected area.
The power supply in the
Devastator took a little longer to re-establish while its alarms were checked.
When the old battleship's systems did fire up again, much of the emergency
wiring - replaced only a few months earlier as part of the vessel's rolling
refit programme by an electrical company very distantly owned by Miz Gattse
Kuma -
promptly melted, starting numerous but small fires throughout the old ship.
The system was shut down again. Duty engineers on the
Devastator
-who, after the guards, made up the bulk of the old battleship's fifty or so
night staff -
worked to reroute the generator supply while battery-powered fire control
systems tackled the fires; most were put out within a few minutes.
The Module half-ploughed, half-floated gently on, approaching the dark space
under the silent battleship, whose wide, flat bottom hung suspended just a
handful of metres above the floor of soft, black mud.
Lebmellin fought the desire to look at his timepiece or ask an aide the hour.
He watched the Chief Invigilator as the older man fell under the spell of the
golden-haired Franck woman. The aristocrat was quite outshone in her company.
Zefla Franck glowed; she filled the space about her with life and beauty and
an attraction you could almost taste.
The Sharrow woman had a sort of quiet, dark beauty, under stated despite the
strength of her features and forbidding, even if one had not known she was
from a major house; she was like a dark, cloud-covered planet clothed in
quiet, cold mystery.
But the Franck woman was like Thrial; like the sun; a radiance Lebmellin could
feel on his face as she joshed and joked with his immediate superior. And the
old fool was lapping it up, falling for it, falling for her.
Mine
, thought Lebmellin, watching her as she talked and laughed, savouring the way
she put her head back and the exquisite shape it gave that long, inviting
neck.
Mine
, he told himself, fastening his gaze on her hand when it went out to touch
the ornately embroidered material on the arm of the Chief Invigilator's robe.
You'll be mine
, Lebmellin told her piled mass of shining golden hair and her wise-child
laughing eyes and her perfect, agile, ever minutely swivelling and shifting
figure and her luxurious, enveloping, softly welcoming voice and mouth.
Mine, when this is over, and l can have whatever I want.
Mine.
The Chief Invigilator offered to show the Francks the Log-Jam from his yacht.
She accepted; her brother declined gracefully, to the obvious relief of the
Chief Invigilator. He swept off with her on his arm, taking only his two
bodyguards, private secretary, butler, chef and physician with him and leaving
the rest of his entourage behind to look briefly discomfited, then relax and
enjoy themselves.
Page 51
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
The mains power was reconnected by a different route before the
Devastator
's generator could be hooked into the circuit. When the battleship's circuits
came alive again, many of the alarms went off. There were still dozens of
small fires burning aboard, and though they too were extinguished shortly
after the power returned, there was smoke in many of the ship's spaces, only [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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The aristocrat, standing under the bright coloured lights near the centre of
the reception room, had taken off her shoes; her naked feet were half
submerged in the thick pile of the room's richly patterned carpet. Lebmellin
loathed such aristocratic affectation. He had to suppress a sneer as he shared
a joke with a popular and influential courtesan it would have been foolish to
antagonise.
He laughed lightly, putting his head back. Good; Kuma was just introducing the
Franck woman to the Chief
Invigilator.
A few minutes after midnight, routine repair work on a factory ship a couple
of vessels away from what had once been the Imperial Tilian Navy's flagship
Devastator resulted in a small explosion in the manufacturing vessel's bilges.
The Repair Module sensed the faintest of alterations to the dim hanging shape
of a distant ship, then registered the shockwave as it passed through the
attached hulls above, and finally heard and felt the explosion pulsing through
the water around it as it trundled quietly and softly across the mud towards
the old battleship.
The gas detonation fractured several of the factory ship's outer plates and
Page 50
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
ruptured the insulation of a main power cable, so that when the water rushed
in through the gaps in the ship's hull it shorted out the electricity supply
for several dozen ships near the heart of the Log-Jam. That part of the city
sank into darkness.
The Module sensed the electrical fields immediately around fade and die,
leaving only the magnetic signatures of the fabric of the ships themselves.
Emergency lights burned on the ships for a few seconds until their stand-by
generators took up the strain, so that, one by one, the vessels flickered into
brightness again. The Log-Jam's power supply centre - tapping the reactors of
dozens of old submarines and four of the eight nuclear-powered carriers which
made up Carrier Field -instituted checks to determine where the power line had
shorted, before it started to re-route electricity to the affected area.
The power supply in the
Devastator took a little longer to re-establish while its alarms were checked.
When the old battleship's systems did fire up again, much of the emergency
wiring - replaced only a few months earlier as part of the vessel's rolling
refit programme by an electrical company very distantly owned by Miz Gattse
Kuma -
promptly melted, starting numerous but small fires throughout the old ship.
The system was shut down again. Duty engineers on the
Devastator
-who, after the guards, made up the bulk of the old battleship's fifty or so
night staff -
worked to reroute the generator supply while battery-powered fire control
systems tackled the fires; most were put out within a few minutes.
The Module half-ploughed, half-floated gently on, approaching the dark space
under the silent battleship, whose wide, flat bottom hung suspended just a
handful of metres above the floor of soft, black mud.
Lebmellin fought the desire to look at his timepiece or ask an aide the hour.
He watched the Chief Invigilator as the older man fell under the spell of the
golden-haired Franck woman. The aristocrat was quite outshone in her company.
Zefla Franck glowed; she filled the space about her with life and beauty and
an attraction you could almost taste.
The Sharrow woman had a sort of quiet, dark beauty, under stated despite the
strength of her features and forbidding, even if one had not known she was
from a major house; she was like a dark, cloud-covered planet clothed in
quiet, cold mystery.
But the Franck woman was like Thrial; like the sun; a radiance Lebmellin could
feel on his face as she joshed and joked with his immediate superior. And the
old fool was lapping it up, falling for it, falling for her.
Mine
, thought Lebmellin, watching her as she talked and laughed, savouring the way
she put her head back and the exquisite shape it gave that long, inviting
neck.
Mine
, he told himself, fastening his gaze on her hand when it went out to touch
the ornately embroidered material on the arm of the Chief Invigilator's robe.
You'll be mine
, Lebmellin told her piled mass of shining golden hair and her wise-child
laughing eyes and her perfect, agile, ever minutely swivelling and shifting
figure and her luxurious, enveloping, softly welcoming voice and mouth.
Mine, when this is over, and l can have whatever I want.
Mine.
The Chief Invigilator offered to show the Francks the Log-Jam from his yacht.
She accepted; her brother declined gracefully, to the obvious relief of the
Chief Invigilator. He swept off with her on his arm, taking only his two
bodyguards, private secretary, butler, chef and physician with him and leaving
the rest of his entourage behind to look briefly discomfited, then relax and
enjoy themselves.
Page 51
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
The mains power was reconnected by a different route before the
Devastator
's generator could be hooked into the circuit. When the battleship's circuits
came alive again, many of the alarms went off. There were still dozens of
small fires burning aboard, and though they too were extinguished shortly
after the power returned, there was smoke in many of the ship's spaces, only [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]