The Age of Scorpio

Начало книги

The deep-space salvage tug looked like it was made of hundreds of years of patched-together scrap parts. The original parts of the ship were buried underneath layers of barely functioning detritus. It was a scavenger ship, a space-going parasite that fed on the misfortunes of others. Just like everything else in Known Space.

Forward was Command and Control, the crew area, workshops and a small internal hold, but much of the rest of the craft was exposed to vacuum. The massive towing apparatus, tools for use in vacuum, rolls of high-tensile net to carry externally salvaged cargo, detachable boosters to attach to towed hulks and hangars for the various drones, including Nulty’s own hangar. The rest of the crew had long since given up trying to guess Nulty’s original race and gender. A long time ago Nulty had uploaded himself into a deep-space salvage drone and chosen to live in a machine body in the vacuum.

Читать дальше →