Читаем The Pillars of Eternity полностью

But what was it Larry and the Hat Brothers planned? Simply to shoot down everyone present. Boaz reached out in his mind to draw extra defensive strength over the beam from his ship – but at that moment the ship itself spoke to him:

Extreme danger. Return immediately.

He was puzzled by the message. He could not imagine what threat to him there was here that the ship could not help him handle. Larry was doing nothing, merely smiling to himself, while the brothers gazed in bored fashion at the floor.

He was about to ask the ship for an explanation when a shout from the far end of the lounge directed him to the answer. A big wall screen had come on, probably activated by a robot on the yacht’s bridge.

The gathered swarm of small ships was on the screen. Moving through them, firing in all directions with what looked like proton broadbeams, came two slightly larger vessels, almost certainly those belonging to the Hat Brothers and to Larry and his girls.

It now became urgently clear to Boaz what the danger was. It was not directly to him. It was to his ship. His ship, without which he was dead. This had been prearranged; while seeming to do nothing, Larry and the Hat Brothers had been sending go signals to their vessels.

The scene was little short of carnage. Very few of the starcraft had weapons, and those that were manned got under way and fled in panic. Others – mostly those whose occupants were aboard The Sedulous Seeker – floated passively and were junked by the withering effect of high-velocity proton pulses.

While seeing this, Boaz was on his way to the exit. There the robot which had admitted him barred his path.

‘Sir, I strongly urge you not to leave the ship. It is not safe out there.’

‘Get out of my way!’ Boaz bawled.

‘Sir, for your own safety I cannot allow you to pass. Citizen Obsoc would be most distressed if you came to harm on his account.’

Boaz paused, turning to see what happened in the lounge behind him. Everyone now realized what was afoot. Some recognized the identity of the attacking ships. But just as they might have been thinking of doing something about it, they were pre-empted by Larry’s girls. Parawhips in hand, they stepped toward the gathering their motions animal and predatory, sending the thin whips singing out warningly over the heads of those present.

The Hat Brothers entered into the act, too. Producing numbnerve guns, they separated to dance down opposite sides of the lounge. Watching them move was fascinating. It was not a walk, not a lope, but more like a beautifully co-ordinated balletic performance. Boaz realized that they enjoyed moving together. Phut, phut went the hazy blue spheres of static they sent rebounding through the lounge from the muzzles of their guns, again taking care not to aim at anyone.

‘Don’t anybody move,’ said a brother in a confident, low-timbred voice. ‘When we’ve cleared the riffraff away we’ll carry out the nymphgirl’s plan.’

‘My ship!’ screamed someone. Boaz waited to see no more. He pushed aside the robot, who did not have the strength to restrain a human being anyway, and ran down the corridor.

Others had got the idea of trying to save their craft by the time he reached the skin of the ship, but he had no difficulty in sending the signal that automatically reconnected the access tubes. Wondering what he would do if a proton beam accidentally sliced through the tunnel, he hauled himself swiftly along it and in minutes had regained his own ship.

As with most vessels, there was no external armament and it was imperative to get out of danger as quickly as possible. Ordering the ship to bring him an image of surrounding space, he went to his cabin.

The long shaft of Obsoc’s yacht floated fifty yards away. In the other direction was a scene of chaos. With scarcely a thought from Boaz, the ship disconnected and was about to withdraw the access tube, when he noticed a figure floating near the dangling end of another access tube farther along The Sedulous Seeker.

The figure, wearing an emergency space cape and twisting slowly, looked familiar. ‘Give me a closer look at that,’ Boaz ordered.

The picture zoomed in his mind. As he had thought, it was Romrey. Panning the image, Boaz found the wreck of his Stardiver. Romrey must have been trying to reach it, and had somehow fallen out of the end of the tube. Very careless of him.

Boaz knew he should be steering his ship away from here without delay. But there was never a time when ethics could be entirely overridden. He nudged the ship closer and ordered the tube extended toward the stranded man.

Suddenly the ship spoke to him again, with a note of even greater urgency: Attention. A government cruiser approaches.

‘What?’ Boaz spoke out loud in his startlement. ‘But it isn’t due for another two standard days.’

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