Pegasus In Space
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Серия: Talents #3
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Pegasus In Space». Краткое содержание книги:
For an overpopulated Earth whose resources are strained to the breaking point, there is only one place to look for relief: straight up. With the successful completion of the Padrugoi Space Station, humanity has at last achieved its first large-scale permanent presence in space. But there are those who, for motives of their own, want Padrugoi to fail. Standing in their way are the Talented, men and women gifted with extraordinary mental powers that have made them as feared as they are respected--and utterly indispensable to the colonization effort. Now, as sabotage and attempted murder strike the Station, it's up to the Talented to save the day. Only who is going to save the Talented?
Pegasus in Space is the tale of Peter Reidinger, first Tower Prime!
Zahid didn't like Salma. As a young girl, she had been chosen from her village to go to the school to learn to read and write and do sums. Because of that, she did not efface herself, as a proper woman should, speaking out often in the shomiti with unseemly disregard of custom. Ayud Bondha always indulged her, smiling and doing nothing to discipline her, as a husband should.
"We will be seeing shomiti lights soon Zahid said and sent his beam ahead of them, squinting to see any glimmer from their destination. Shomiti were still built on heavy concrete pillars, thanks be to Iswah, so their shelter remained above the flooded lands. There would be light cylinders-also of the long-life variety-hung on the comers of the covered veranda to show refugees their way through the day's darkness, wind, and rain.
"Aiyeee!" screamed his wife, sliding her length in the mud, face down. The fall both amused and irritated Zahid. Sputtering curses, he caught hold of her arm with his free hand, the arc of the light he held going every which way again. Ayud Bondha grasped her other flailing arm and, between them, they managed to lift her out of the mud. Solicitously, Salma used the long end of her already sodden sari to clear Jamila's mud-smeared face while she gasped for breath and spat out the grit in her mouth.
"Aiyeee!" Jamila screamed again, wildly pointing at the rushing water. "Something in the river!" She grabbed her husband's hand with her muddied ones and steadied the broad beam of the flashlight on what she had glimpsed when his beam was erratically flashing about.
"Nothing alive," Zahid retorted, trying to wrest control of the torch from her.
"I see something, too," Salma said, and Zahid snarled under his breath. That was all he needed. Her to side with the thin stick who was his wife.
"There is something," Ayud agreed, and by then the rest of their group had caught up to them.
Rafiq and Rahim added their lights to his reluctant one and even he had to admit that there was something, a small child perhaps, clinging to the fork of two branches. Zahid was stunned. A tree of such size had to have floated down all the way from the Terai region. Even as he watched, he saw movement, a wide-open mouth in a white face, probably calling for help. Suddenly, the current of the Jamuna whimsically pushed the tree closer to the levee.
"Joldi!" cried Salma, pushing at Zahid. "Sahajyo! Quick! Help!"
"Ki kore? How?" Zahid demanded, one hand gesturing his helplessness while, with the other, he stubbornly followed the slowly spinning mass with his light.
"Dig your feet in!" Rahim cried, leaping forward. "We make a chain. Grab my hand, Rafiq. You, too, Jabbar, Khaliq. Make a chain. Zahid, light us."
Rahim barely got a firm grip on Rafiq's hand before Zahid pushed Jabbar and Khaliq into place, making himself the end of the human rescue line. He was as heavy as Rahim and could be the anchor despite the slippery mud. His wife wailed and moaned that surely they would not be in time, that they would all fall in the water and drown, and then what would become of them? Then Salma grabbed the light from Zahid's hand as he was pulled forward, closer to the edge of the levee. Frantically he dug his heels into the slippery soil, determined to stop his forward movement. Khaliq also dug his feet in. Then Rahim, living up to his name of "mighty soldier," caught hold of the nearest branch of the tree fork and hauled it closer. He stretched the human chain to its full length as he made his first grab at the child. It let out a shriek that could be heard above the wind's screech and lay limp across the bole. Rahim made a second grab and got a firm grip on one leg.
"Tana!" cried Rahim, struggling to shift his balance back to the levee.
Pull the others did, Jabbar going down on his knees in the mud to keep from sliding further. As Rahim teetered backward, Khaliq dropped Jabbar's hand and rushed to grab Rahim's shirt to draw him and his burden to the relative safety of the higher bank. Salma focused the light on the tree that, its passenger now safely ashore, was caught by an eddy and swirled away.
"Light, woman!" Zahid shouted, angrily snatching it back and shining it on the child.
Rain slanted down on the unconscious face and the open mouth. Suddenly Rahim jerked the tattered shirt down, glancing warily at Jamila who had bent to examine the human flotsam.
"A girl child," she said. Then she saw and touched the limp left arm that dangled at an unnatural angle. "Broken."
"Give Iswah thanks for preserving the child," murmured Zahid.
"Did I do that?" asked Rahim, panting from his exertions and reaching out to the injured limb.
"Iswah knows," Jamila said with pious absolution. "Young bones heal easily."
"You were holding the other arm, Rahim Ali," Salina said, flinging a sodden braid over her shoulder.
"How could you see?" Zahid demanded.
"I was holding the light," she replied, but now Ayud Bondha tapped her shoulder in tacit reprimand. I did see," she said defensively. Then she fumbled in the bundle she had over her shoulder and brought out a smoothed stick, wood oiled by long usage in cooking. "Jamila, this for a splint. Tie with this." Dragging the end of a piece of fabric out, she gnawed a cut in the hem and then, with a strong gesture, tore off the end. She handed the strip and the utensil to Jamila.
With the experienced deftness of those accustomed to dealing with minor injuries, Jamila and Rahim straightened the thin arm against the smooth wooden stirrer and deftly wound the makeshift bandage around it. The fabric was already sodden from the persistent rain but it would hold the tiny limb to the splint.
"Jolki! Joldi! Be quick," Zahid said, irritated by the holdup. He flashed his light toward the Jamuna and everyone could see that the water had risen against the levee in the short time since the child had been rescued.
Jamila cradled the child in one arm and, with a toss of her head at the scowling Zahid, started off again. Zahid, imperiously waving his light, took a few running steps to take up his forward position.
"Ami neta," he said in a fierce tone. "I am leading."
They had gone no more than fifteen paces when he saw the bobbing of lights coming toward them.
"Are you all right?" someone shouted.
"HA!" Zahid yelled back, cupping his free hand to his mouth.
"We were seeing you stop," the someone said as half a dozen men came into the beam of his torch.
"We are all right but our women are tired," Zahid called back. He did not wish to explain that, at great peril to their lives, they had rescued only a girl child. The saving of a boy would have been worth bragging about.
"We have saved an injured child," Salina shouted.
Then the contingent from the shomiti converged on them and assisted the weary travelers the rest of the way up the slight but muddy incline to the welcome shelter of the community center. The greedy waters of the Jamuna were still below the levee on this stretch, not yet washing at the sturdy columns that held up the building.
Salma had gone to school in this shomiti so she called out to one of the Teachers in the largest room where a huge pot was simmering on a brazier.
"Rupoti Apa," she cried, and the woman looked up from stirring the rice mixture. "We found a child."
"A girl child," Zahid said.
"We are all precious to Iswah," the Shikkhika said, giving Zahid a mildly reproving glance as she rose and came forward to see the limp figure Jamila held out.
"With a broken arm. Is the daktar here?" Jamila asked.
Shaking her head, Rupoti Apa peered at the limp body, noting the splinted arm, the many scratches and bruises, and a skin wrinkled from long immersion. "He is not here. The child is not too badly hurt. Bring her and yourself, Salma, to the fire and be warm. Jamila, take bowls. We have rice and fish to eat. Hot and good." She waved toward the stack of rough pottery bowls on the far side of the brazier.