Gardner, James Alan - League of Peoples 05 by Gardner James Alan

Author:Gardner, James Alan
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

16: WHEREIN I ACQUIRE NEW FAMILY

Black Goo

Outside Nimbus's room, there was no sign of the black clouds that had been guarding him. However, the floor was smeared with a black goo that looked exceedingly yucky; I did not want to step in it, for fear it would stick to my feet.

Festina stared down at the gunk on the floor and whistled softly. "Looks like Captain's Last Act cooks defense nano."

"Good thing too," Captain Kapoor said. "The defense clouds are controlled by the ship-soul; with the computers off-line, you'd have billions of hunter-killer nano-bots flying around without supervision. Thank heavens we don't have to worry about that."

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"Don't speak too soon," Festina said. "We haven't told you about sick bay. Now stand back if you please, Captain, and let an Explorer put her foot in it."

She stepped carefully onto the awful black deposit, tapping it a few times with her toe before setting down her full weight. "Not sticky," she said. Experimentally, she pushed her foot a short distance across the black surface. "Not slippery either." She glanced back at the rest of us. "Considering my usual luck, this is where the cloud suddenly rises from the floor and chews the meat from my bones."

But no such horror occurred. Instead, Festina moved to the door of the cabin and smashed the heel of her palm against a little plastic patch in the very middle. I had been told that one touched such patches in order to request admittance; I had not been told one could bash in the cover plate and manipulate the exposed mechanisms so as to open the door manually. It made me wonder if Lajoolie had been wasting her strength when she broke down the door of the computer room... but then, Lajoolie was not a navy person and therefore did not know the intricacies of the Hemlock's hatches.

Anyway, I am sure she found it far more satisfying to bludgeon a door out of its frame than to twiddle tiny gears until something went click. There is far too little bludgeoning in the human navy.

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