[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

was clear that the vast majority of newcomers still didn't really believe that
the rebels' scheme could succeed.
Hawks once again demonstrated his leadership skills by forming a council of
captains and treating them with respect. Each captain was still absolute
master of his or her own ship, but each was under the command of what they had
come to consider an admiral-one who commands not a ship but a fleet. And that
one was
Hawks.
In fact, the hardest thing for the freebooters to accept was Star Eagle's
existence at all, let alone as an equal captain among them. All their lives
had been spent hating machines that could think on their own. No matter how
different they looked, no matter what languages they thought in or what they
liked to eat or how they liked to live, all of them, even the alien engineer,
Page 118
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
were living creatures born of other living creatures. To them, Star Eagle
seemed a member of the true alien race, the one they were fighting, and it was
very difficult for them to trust him.
Star Eagle had certainly done his best for them. Maintenance had created more
elaborate cargo access ports fitted with air locks and tubes directly into the
ships that had to be carried outside, and hoped to have real pressurization
throughout the ship as needed, even in the cargo bays themselves, within
another month.
The interior village was still badly in need of work, but it had been expanded
enough and customized enough to satisfy most of the needs of those on board
who required more than Earth-human conditions. Savaphoong continued to live on
his luxurious yacht with its transmuter producing luxury goods as needed and
human slaves to wait on him and his subordinates; this arrangement actually
made everyone more comfortable.
Each crew was given an area of the interior shell, along with working offices
in the surrounding middle region, designed as much to their specifications as
practicality and space and data banks allowed. Ikira Sukotae, for example,
actually had a dwelling within a very dark and grass-covered mound with little
or no lighting, although somehow in there was a miniaturized vaporizer toilet
and running water and much else. Her amphibian crewmember had a hut with a
chamber in which fresh water sufficient to cover her body was available along
with air. The centauroids preferred just a patch of ground with specially
designed water supply and waste disposal; they didn't care a bit for privacy.
The others, even the Rock Man, found that the normal hut could be configured
to their needs. The green owlish couple, for example, used things much the
same as everyone else but slept standing up. So, in fact, did the thick-tailed
Buta
Killomen and the Rock Man, while Captain Chun and his exoskeletal mates slept
wrapped around pipes or logs. Only the Makkikor proved a problem to
accommodate, since its native environment and needs were so different-even if
it could breathe human air and a lot of other things, as it turned out-but it
preferred to sleep in the niche it had designed on the Bahakatan and seemed
delighted to help Star Eagle and the maintenance robots with the renovation
and refurbishment of the freebooter ships.
The transmitter at Melchior had made China the way she was, but Isaac Clayben
had figured a mechanical way to help her out at least in the area of her
blindness. Although the program created by his old staff had been diabolically
clever and designed not to be circumvented, Clayben and Star Eagle had devised
a mindprinter interpretive routine and a gadget that gave her a son of sight
when she chose to use it. Sound waves, traveling on a frequency that would not
interfere with ship's systems and was beyond the ability of any colonials or
Earth-humans aboard to hear, were translated into electrical signals and sent
through nerves to her brain, where the interpretive program operated. Only the
Makkikor could hear the signals; he found the sounds not only pleasant but,
Hawks suspected, somewhat erotic.
Using the device along with the mindprinter program, China could "see" well
enough to distinguish individual objects, although she could not discern
specific features of a person nor, for example, read print. She still
preferred her memorization routines, which were now so natural that she hardly
looked handicapped getting about, but in an emergency or in a strange
environment, the device might mean life or death, and she appreciated it.
They had not wasted the time in other ways, either. They hunted without much
success for other remnants of the freebooter culture, and finally Hawks
decided, with the council of captains concurring, to go after a ring.
By now the newcomers had been told the whole story- what they were after, what
the rings could do, and why the rings had been created. Two of the crews had
Page 119
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
visited Chanchuk, and the Indrus knew Janipur well, since the people of that
world had been created out of the same original race as theirs and had kept
many of the same customs and forms of the ancient Hindu beliefs. Captain
Paschittawal, in fact, had even seen the ring itself, in the People's
Treasures collection at Cochin Center, the chief administrator's headquarters.
Apparently, he reported, the chief administrator rarely wore it, except on
solemn and highly ceremonial occasions.
"It is a beautiful thing, very big," Captain Paschittawal told them. "It is
kept under a magnifier, in fact, so that one can see the exquisite detail
work. Two beautiful birds, mirror images, sitting on small fir branches. It is
most treasured because it is one of the every few artifacts that came with the
Founders centuries ago."
Hawks nodded. "I want you to get together with Raven and Sabatini and give
them as much detail as you can. I believe it is time we put Sabatini's unique
talents to work for us."
The captain's eyebrows rose. "I have heard you and the others talk of this,
but
I do not understand what you mean by 'unique talents.'"
"You won't believe it until you witness it, but let me put it this way. You
are
Hindu, correct?"
"I am, sir."
"And you believe, then, in reincarnation?"
"Yes, sir, I most firmly do."
"Let me just say that Captain Sabatini not only can reincarnate, but can
choose just what and who he's going to be. And he does not have to die to do
it."
Although somebody else does, he added a bit guiltily to himself.
After a full briefing by the Indrus crew, Hawks met with his security staff
and
Sabatini in his own office deep inside the guts of the Thunder. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

  • zanotowane.pl
  • doc.pisz.pl
  • pdf.pisz.pl
  • alwayshope.keep.pl

    •