[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
people here, plus your eighty-seven. We wire ourselves and those hostages
together and we come aboard your ship over there as a group. Put us in one of
the big rooms you have there the thing s designed as a traveling cathedral,
after all. You seal us in there. We ll have a floating dead man switch between
us. Anything like a gas or energy attack, anything sudden, we all blow up. Or,
we come aboard, and you feed us and take us out of here.
To where, exactly, do we take you?
It s been a long time. I don t know what s still going where. If we can get
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to a place where we can get a replacement ship, fine. That s good enough. At
least some kind of civilization where I can bargain what I
have.
And what do you think you can bargain for the likes of a ship? Even if we
took you in this fashion and there was no double cross, we can t take your
cargo, your booty, whatever.
Don t be stupid, Woodward. You were supposed to be a bright guy. With a
diminishing supply of ships and repairs there s little material that can be
traded for anything big these days, although we ll try and deal the salvage on
my poor ship there. But I wasn t kidding about having something of
incalculable value.
Knowledge that is worth more than anybody can pay for it.
You re not going to come up with that Three Kings nonsense again, Cromwell
put in.
Oh, but that s exactly what I ve got, sir. I ve got the Three Kings. I ve got
their location, their general descriptions, full navigational information,
requirements to force through to them, and some sampling that indicates that
they at least partially live up to their reputation. You see, we found dear,
sainted Mother
Tymm s vessel.
She had the information. Where she got it from, I don t know. I don t think
she d ever been there, but she sure knew somebody who had. The data modules
were scouting reports from a Vaticanus class scout. And, there were samples.
All the stuff the old legends never gave, but otherwise totally consistent
with them.
How do you know she didn t just create these out of her visions? Cromwell
asked him. If she could astronavigate, it wouldn t be that outrageous.
Eve reached into her robe pocket and pulled out an egg-shaped object about the
size of a child s fist. She stretched out an arm straight in front of her,
offering it to them. When neither of the older men moved, Robey stepped
forward and took it from her, then stepped back.
It was smooth, smoother than glass, smoother than just about anything he could
remember. It was also slightly warm; not hot, but certainly above body
temperature, and it didn t seem to be warm because it was next to anything.
The colors of the thing were spectacular, a kind of crimson wash against a
pale yellow;
but although he could not catch it doing anything, the mixture seemed to move,
so that you couldn t quite find the same pattern or design if you looked away
and then looked back at it.
John Robey stared hard into the egg-shaped thing and, somehow, half inside the
thing, half inside his head, a shape, a picture of some sort, seemed to form
and then sharpen into realistic three-dimensional clarity. He saw it, cried
out, and almost dropped the thing. Cromwell moved quickly and caught it, then
looked at it quizzically.
What was it, son? What did you see? the security man asked him.
I I saw her
. Eve. She was screaming. In agony. It was
horrible
.
Cromwell looked at it, turned it over in his hand, and shook his head.
Weird, he muttered. Doctor?
Woodward took the thing, examined it, and nodded. It s just as the old
stories say. There s supposed to be some of these on Vaticanus, but of course
a lot of the physical evidence was suppressed. There was always the hope that
they could find the place again while convincing everybody else it was just a
legend.
He stared into it as Robey had, and for him, too, a vision coalesced, although
clearly not the same one the younger man had seen. He looked at it, seemingly
transfixed, fascinated by its image which seemed revealed to him alone.
Suddenly, he broke away, as if awakening from a trance. What did you do to
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get this, Sapenza? Murder the crew?
Nothing of the sort! She d been dead and so had the small crew of that ship
for a century and a half before we lucked onto her, and that was only because
we d just had a professional disagreement, let s say, with a former partner
over some financial matters and then discovered he had bigger guns than we did
even though we had a faster ship. We went through gate after gate at top
speed, so scrambled even we didn t know or care where we were going. We gave
em the slip somewhere in the system, and came out an old gate and almost
crashed into the wreck. Who knows how long it was there, or how many other
ships might have gone past without even noticing it? Sheer luck, or chance. We
did a salvage and strip, and the first thing we did, of course, was retrace
its course to see if the colony was worth a look. As you can see, it wasn t,
but that last shot we d taken and the stress of all that gating at speed
caused the bubble to burst.
We ve been stuck here ever since. The Curse of Mother Tymm, you might call it.
What with all the informational stuff, the Three Kings artifacts, and the
Reverend Mother s own personal possessions we were able to convince the yokels
that we were the guardians until the dear Mother returned. She won t, of
course. Not in this life. Besides, she d be almost four hundred anyway. A bit
old for anybody s taste. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl rafalstec.xlx.pl
people here, plus your eighty-seven. We wire ourselves and those hostages
together and we come aboard your ship over there as a group. Put us in one of
the big rooms you have there the thing s designed as a traveling cathedral,
after all. You seal us in there. We ll have a floating dead man switch between
us. Anything like a gas or energy attack, anything sudden, we all blow up. Or,
we come aboard, and you feed us and take us out of here.
To where, exactly, do we take you?
It s been a long time. I don t know what s still going where. If we can get
Page 82
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
to a place where we can get a replacement ship, fine. That s good enough. At
least some kind of civilization where I can bargain what I
have.
And what do you think you can bargain for the likes of a ship? Even if we
took you in this fashion and there was no double cross, we can t take your
cargo, your booty, whatever.
Don t be stupid, Woodward. You were supposed to be a bright guy. With a
diminishing supply of ships and repairs there s little material that can be
traded for anything big these days, although we ll try and deal the salvage on
my poor ship there. But I wasn t kidding about having something of
incalculable value.
Knowledge that is worth more than anybody can pay for it.
You re not going to come up with that Three Kings nonsense again, Cromwell
put in.
Oh, but that s exactly what I ve got, sir. I ve got the Three Kings. I ve got
their location, their general descriptions, full navigational information,
requirements to force through to them, and some sampling that indicates that
they at least partially live up to their reputation. You see, we found dear,
sainted Mother
Tymm s vessel.
She had the information. Where she got it from, I don t know. I don t think
she d ever been there, but she sure knew somebody who had. The data modules
were scouting reports from a Vaticanus class scout. And, there were samples.
All the stuff the old legends never gave, but otherwise totally consistent
with them.
How do you know she didn t just create these out of her visions? Cromwell
asked him. If she could astronavigate, it wouldn t be that outrageous.
Eve reached into her robe pocket and pulled out an egg-shaped object about the
size of a child s fist. She stretched out an arm straight in front of her,
offering it to them. When neither of the older men moved, Robey stepped
forward and took it from her, then stepped back.
It was smooth, smoother than glass, smoother than just about anything he could
remember. It was also slightly warm; not hot, but certainly above body
temperature, and it didn t seem to be warm because it was next to anything.
The colors of the thing were spectacular, a kind of crimson wash against a
pale yellow;
but although he could not catch it doing anything, the mixture seemed to move,
so that you couldn t quite find the same pattern or design if you looked away
and then looked back at it.
John Robey stared hard into the egg-shaped thing and, somehow, half inside the
thing, half inside his head, a shape, a picture of some sort, seemed to form
and then sharpen into realistic three-dimensional clarity. He saw it, cried
out, and almost dropped the thing. Cromwell moved quickly and caught it, then
looked at it quizzically.
What was it, son? What did you see? the security man asked him.
I I saw her
. Eve. She was screaming. In agony. It was
horrible
.
Cromwell looked at it, turned it over in his hand, and shook his head.
Weird, he muttered. Doctor?
Woodward took the thing, examined it, and nodded. It s just as the old
stories say. There s supposed to be some of these on Vaticanus, but of course
a lot of the physical evidence was suppressed. There was always the hope that
they could find the place again while convincing everybody else it was just a
legend.
He stared into it as Robey had, and for him, too, a vision coalesced, although
clearly not the same one the younger man had seen. He looked at it, seemingly
transfixed, fascinated by its image which seemed revealed to him alone.
Suddenly, he broke away, as if awakening from a trance. What did you do to
Page 83
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
get this, Sapenza? Murder the crew?
Nothing of the sort! She d been dead and so had the small crew of that ship
for a century and a half before we lucked onto her, and that was only because
we d just had a professional disagreement, let s say, with a former partner
over some financial matters and then discovered he had bigger guns than we did
even though we had a faster ship. We went through gate after gate at top
speed, so scrambled even we didn t know or care where we were going. We gave
em the slip somewhere in the system, and came out an old gate and almost
crashed into the wreck. Who knows how long it was there, or how many other
ships might have gone past without even noticing it? Sheer luck, or chance. We
did a salvage and strip, and the first thing we did, of course, was retrace
its course to see if the colony was worth a look. As you can see, it wasn t,
but that last shot we d taken and the stress of all that gating at speed
caused the bubble to burst.
We ve been stuck here ever since. The Curse of Mother Tymm, you might call it.
What with all the informational stuff, the Three Kings artifacts, and the
Reverend Mother s own personal possessions we were able to convince the yokels
that we were the guardians until the dear Mother returned. She won t, of
course. Not in this life. Besides, she d be almost four hundred anyway. A bit
old for anybody s taste. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]