The Death of Sleep
- Автор: Маккефри Энн, Най Джоди Линн
- Серия: Planet Pirates #2
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Death of Sleep». Краткое содержание книги:
Her last conscious thoughts were of her daughter, and she hoped that the rescue shuttle wouldn't take too long to answer the Mayday.
All lights on the shuttle except the exterior running lights and beacon went down. Inside, cold cryogenic vapor filled the tiny cabin, swirling around Lunzie's still form…
Captain Wynline cleared his throat. "In that case, Koberly, I apologise. I'm only human, and I was under a good deal of strain, too. I ask for your forgiveness."
There was a general outburst of protest. Many of the others shouted Koberly down, but a few agreed pugnaciously that Wynline owed them an apology.
"Does that satisfy you, Koberly?" Lunzie asked, encouragingly.
The chef shrugged and looked down at the floor. "I guess so. Next time, let me volunteer first, huh?"
Wynline nodded gravely. "You have my word."
"Now, what's this about our not getting paid for our down time?" Chibor asked the captain.
Wynline was almost automatically on the defensive. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but since the ship was treated as lost, the Paraden Company feels that the employees aboard her were needlessly risking their lives. Only the crew who were picked up with the escape pods were given compensatory pay. Our employment was terminated on the day the insurance company paid off theDestiny Calls."
There was a loud outcry over that. "They can't do that to us!" Koberly protested. "We should be getting ten years back pay!"
"Where's justice when you need it?"
Dr. Harris cleared his throat. "The captain is planning to press charges against the Paraden Company to recover the cost of the deepspace search. You can all sign on as co-plaintiffs against them. We'll give statements to the court recorder when we reach Alpha Centauri."
Lunzie and a handful of the Destiny's crew watched from a remote video pickup in the rec room as theBan Sidhe pulled into a stable orbit around Alpha Centauri. It was the first time that she'd been this close to the centre of the settled galaxy. The infrared view of the night side of the planet showed almost continuous heat trace across all the land masses and even some under the seas, indicating population centres. She'd never seen such a crowded planet in her life. And somewhere down on that world was her family. Lunzie couldn't wait to meet them.
Two unimaginably long shifts later, she received permission to go dirtside in the landing shuttle. She took a small duffle with some of her clothes and toiletries and Fiona's hologram. After checking her new short haircut hastily in the lavatory mirror, she hurried to the airlock. Some of the Destiny's kitchen staff were already waiting there for the shuttle, surrounded by all of their belongings.
"I'm staying," Koberly declared, "until I can get the Tribunal to hear my case against Destiny Lines. Those unsanctioned progeny of a human union won't get away with shoving me into a freezer for ten years, and then cheating me out of my rights."
"I'm just staying," said Voor, clasping her utensil case to her astounding double bosom. "There are always plenty of jobs on settled worlds for good cooks. I plan to apply to the biggest and best hotels in Alpha City. They'd be eager to snap up a pastry chef who can cook for ten thousand on short notice."
Koberly shook his head pityingly at the Gurnsan's complacent attitude. "Don't be dumb. You're an artist, cowgirl. You shouldn't apply for a job just because you're fast, or because you supply your own milk. Let 'em give you an audition. Once they taste your desserts they will give you anything to keep you from leaving their establishment without saying yes. Anything."
"You're too kind," Voor protested gently, shaking her broad head.
"I agree with him," Lunzie put in sincerely. "Perhaps you should hold an auction and sell your services to the highest bidder."
"If you like, I will handle the business arrangements for you," said a voice behind Lunzie. "May I join you while you wait? It is my turn to go on shore leave as well." It was Tee, glowing like a nova in his white dress uniform. Lunzie and the others greeted him warmly.
"Delighted, Ensign," Voor said. "You saved my life. I will always be happy to see you."
"I haven't seen much of you the last few days," Lunzie told him, hoping it didn't sound like a reproach.
Tee grinned, showing his white teeth. "But I have seen you! Playing the therapy sessions like a master conductor. I have stood in the back of the chamber listening, as first one speaks up, then another speaks up, and you solve all their problems. You are so wise."
Lunzie laughed. "In this case the complaint was easy to diagnose. I'm a sufferer, too."
Behind the burnished steel door came a hissing, and the booming of metal on metal. Around the edge of the doorway, red lights began flashing, and a siren whooped. Lunzie and the others automatically jumped back, alarmed.
"It is only the airlock in use," Tee explained apologetically. "If there had been an actual emergency, we would be too close to it to be safe anyway."
With a hiss, the door slid back, and the shuttle pilot appeared inside the hollow chamber, and gestured the passengers inside. "Ten hundred hours. Is everyone ready?"
"Yes!" The pilot dived aside as his cargo rushed past him eagerly.
"Unrecirculated air!" Lunzie stepped out of the spaceport in Alpha City and felt the caress of a natural wind for the first time since leaving Astris. She held her face up to the sun and took a deep breath of air. And expelled it immediately in a fit of coughing.
"Wha-what's the matter with the air?" she asked, sniffing cautiously and wrinkling her nose at the odour. It was laden with chemical fumes and the smell of spoiling vegetation. She looked up at the sky and saw the sun ringed with a grayish haze that shimmered over the surrounding city.
"Some good news, and some bad news. Doctor Lunzie," a Fleet ensign explained. "The good news is it's natural, and it hasn't been reoxygenated by machines a million times. The bad news is what the humans who live on Alpha have been throwing into it for thousands of years. Airborne garbage."
"Ough! How could they do this to themselves? The very air they breathe!" Lunzie moaned, dabbing her streaming eyes with a handkerchief.
Tee picked up her bags and hailed a groundcar. "It shouldn't be as bad further from the spaceport. Come on." He hurried her down the concrete ramp and into the sealed car.
"Where are you going?" Lunzie demanded when she could speak. She blew her nose loudly into the handkerchief.
"With you. I would not miss your family reunion for the world. I have an invitation from Melanie."
"What is your destination?" the robotic voice of the groundcar demanded. "With or without travel guide?" Tee reeled off an address. "What do you think, Lunzie? Do you want it to tell you about the sights we pass?"
Lunzie peered through the windows at the unending panorama of gray buildings, gray streets, and gray air. The only colour was the clothing of the few pedestrians they passed. "I don't think so. It all looks the same, for kilometers in every direction, and it's so gloomy. I just want to get there and meet them. I wonder how they've all changed in ten years. Do you suppose there are new babies?"
"Why not? No travel guide," Tee ordered.
"Acknowledged."
Tee chatted brightly with her as they sailed along the superhighways toward Melanie's. Once they had disembarked from theBan Sidhe, he was his old self, expansive and affectionate. Lunzie decided that it must be the military atmosphere of the Fleet ship which squashed his usually sunny nature. She was relieved that he was feeling better.
It was twilight when they finally arrived. The groundcar disgorged them in suburban Shaygo, only two hundred kilometers from Alpha City. Lunzie couldn't tell by watching when one city left off and the second one began. They had obviously grown together over the years. There was no open space, no parks, no havens for vegetation, just intertwining thoroughfares with thousands of similar podlike groundcars hurtling along them. The trail of air transports penned on the gray sky in white between the tall buildings. Lunzie found the sight depressing.