Alien Earth. Megan Lindholm

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СКАЧАТЬ He didn’t know any other Beastship captain who didn’t feel the same frustration with the biologically imposed ceiling on ambition. He’d reached the pinnacle of his career, but his fingertips would only brush mankind’s ambition to roam the stars.

      He spared a glance for Connie, the only other Human inhabitant on the Evangeline. She was the crew, as he was the captain. Tug was the owner, and Evangeline herself was no one knew what. According to Tug and the other Arthroplanas who owned them, the Beastships were alive and almost sentient. And horribly sensitive to being peeked and probed at, which was why despite their two-thousand-year acquaintanceship, no Humans had ever been allowed more than the most cursory of inspections of one. No Human understood the mechanisms by which a Beastship fed or communicated with another Beast or with the Arthroplana within its body, let alone how they achieved light speed. When questioned by Humans about the Beastships’ method of locomotion, the Arthroplanas either professed not to understand it either, or retreated into a semantic jungle of words that had no Human equivalent, interspersed with concepts that seemed more philosophical than physical. Their “explanations” served only to give those Humans who specialized in Arthroplana psychology more to argue about among themselves. Once, during one of their quarrels, John had accused Tug and the Arthroplana in general of dissembling with Humanity merely to keep their monopoly on interstellar travel. Tug had laughed, in his most annoying simulated giggle. For ten solid minutes.

      He reflected that as captain he still knew little more than the very first Humans who had boarded a Beastship “lifeboat” for the evacuation of Terra. He shifted restlessly, and tried to focus his mind on his more immediate problems.

      “Check back with the ship every twelve hours while we’re in port. I don’t think our layover here will be very long. Norwich Shipping has picked up their contract option the last dozen times we’ve been here; I expect they’ll do it again, if I go in and argue with them. If they do, I want to be ready to go. And if they don’t, I want you to be ready to go with whatever I do find for us. But Norwich will be my first effort. I wonder what the hell they want to renegotiate. Probably want to lower the risk bonus again. Same old damn thing. They think because we haven’t had any accidents, there isn’t any danger in these weird runs they find for us. I’d like to see them find someone else who’d be willing to take on one of their little errands.”

      John paused and waited for Connie to make some sort of response. He saw her eyes flicker in his direction, then fix on her screen again. Come on, kid, have an opinion about something, will you? He filled in the conversation himself.

      “The only reason we don’t have accidents is because we’re good. No one else could handle their business for them as smoothly as we do. They’ll find that out quickly enough. In any case, I want to keep our port time and expenses as small as possible until we know where our next contract’s coming from. If we do get something, I don’t want to be held up waiting for you to report. So check back in, uh, every six hours,” he amended, and watched her.

      She looked up from her own screen that was giving her an exciting view of Delta Station’s smelting and refining quadrant. Her brown eyes were huge. The stubble of hair on her scalp was dark and would possibly be curly if she were ever out of Waitsleep long enough to let it grow. John stared at it and wondered idly what she looked like with hair. She was still almost a stranger to him, for all that this was their second trip together. He wondered if she had deliberately set up her waking intervals so they wouldn’t coincide with his. Of course, that would have taken Tug’s collaboration, but he was sure she could get that with no difficulty. Tug routinely suborned crewmen almost as fast as John could hire them. Hell, Tug would probably have suggested it to her. Anything that needled John delighted the Arthroplana. And John reciprocated. He considered replacing Connie just to make Tug wonder why, then shrugged the thought away. It wouldn’t be fair. He’d hired her because Andrew had said she was quiet, competent, and would respect his privacy. Andrew knew that loud, overly friendly people drove him crazy. But Connie didn’t seem to want or need any social interaction at all. Even that he could live with, if he could ever get her to see what needed doing and just do it without waiting for a specific command from him for every separate task. Right now, she was still staring at him. “Every six hours, sir?” she asked uncertainly.

      “Yes, six hours,” he replied testily. “Do you have a problem with that?” He waited for her to object that Delta Station was on a standard Terra period of twenty-four hours and that she was technically only required to report to him once each period, but she didn’t She glanced away from him.

      “No problem, sir,” she said meekly, and that was that.

      John resisted the urge to needle her again. He stared at her deliberately, and watched her hunch herself deeper into her station screen. The standard shipboard smock she wore strained across her wide shoulders. She’d probably been hunching like that ever since she was a child, in an effort to look smaller. It didn’t work. Even the loose uniform trousers were snug on her and too short. She was big, for a woman of her generation, but John would still be bigger than she was when they were both full-grown. After all, he was the ninety-third generation, and she was hundred and third. People had gotten a lot smaller in those ten generations.

      His eyes roved the command chamber’s Spartan walls, bare monitors, functional control panels, seeking something, anything, to hang his attention on. But in Conservancy-approved fashion, there was absolutely nothing within the chamber that wasn’t necessary. Every item had an indispensable purpose. He looked at Connie and wondered briefly if that was what irritated him about her: perhaps she had a Conservancy-approved mind, all functionality, all imagination pared away in the interests of efficiency and conservation of resources.

      “Connie!” he said, more sharply than he’d intended. She flinched again.

      “Yes, sir?”

      “Keep an eye on things. I’m going down to my quarters.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      She didn’t even dare to ask him what she should keep an eye on. Or maybe it never occurred to her to ask. For a moment he thought about asking her exactly what she would watch, but then decided he was too hungry to enjoy prodding at her anymore. If he got any extra time in port, and if the Beastship Trotter was in, too, and if Andrew had any extra time, maybe John could pry a little more out of him. For now, let it go. He had a few personal chores of his own to take care of before they docked. He unhooked from the harness on his lounge and swung clear on a transverse cleat. It felt good to stretch his muscles, and he flung himself out of the command chamber with more force than was necessary. Maybe he was growing, he thought as he made his way through the corridor that led to the gallery. Maybe he was even getting ready to go through the change.

      “Prick,” Tug observed.

      Connie flinched again. She hated herself for that. She should have been over it by now, should have been used to both John and Tug, and have stopped jumping every time one of them spoke. But John was always so caustic and critical, and Tug was always saying such unexpected things. Like now.

      “Repeat, please, Tug,” she requested.

      “Prick.” When Connie frowned, he continued helpfully, “Dick. Prod. Sticker.”

      The last term she recognized, and giggled nervously.

      “All terms for the Human male’s sexual organ,” Tug continued gravely. “And all used to express contempt for a person who receives unusual satisfaction out of being unpleasant when in a position of authority. What do you suppose we can infer about Humans from that?”

      Connie shrugged and stared into her screen. She didn’t know what to make of Tug. She had only had direct contact with one other Arthroplana, and that one had never conversed СКАЧАТЬ