V - The Original Miniseries Read Online Free PDF Page B

females in your crew?" John sounded faintly surprised. "Well, yes, of course. This is Diana ... she is second in command."
The brunette nodded pleasantly at them. Donovan gave her another closeup. She turned to accompany them on the tour.
    The control room looked faintly like the conning tower of a nuclear submarine, but larger, with perhaps a dozen men and women busily working at large multilighted consoles before viewscreens. A few showed glimpses of Manhattan below, but most were filled with instrument graphs and readouts. All the crewmembers were dressed in the reddish coveralls, with slight variations in the breast designs that apparently designated rank and station. Mike panned the camera quickly, for the. admiral did not pause, but kept moving.
"Next we'll see what you'd call our engine room." "Does that screen over there keep you in touch with the other ships in your `small fleet'?" John turned to see which readout Kristine was pointing to.
     
"Yes, Kristine." Diana's voice, barring the alien reverberation, was a husky contralto. "Most of the others monitor and activate the functions of the ship. It's quite routine and unspectacular, really." Sure, thought Donovan, zooming in for a shot of the two women. If you happen to be from another star ...
    They moved along the catwalk until it led into a tunnel. The dark walkway extended for nearly forty paces-Donovan counted them. He realized, with a prickle touching the short hairs at the nape of his neck, that he was behaving as if he were scouting enemy territory. Don't be paranoid, Mike. They've come in peace, remember?
    The only features worth noting in the tunnel were several doors painted a brilliant, chromatic yellow. Donovan examined them through the viewfinder, but saw nothing beyond their color to indicate that they were special.
"And those doors we just passed?" Kristine was asking Diana. "Restricted areas-a lot of radioactivity. Our gravity drive, as you've seen, is quite effective, but it takes up nearly half the ship."
     
"How fast can this baby go?" Donovan asked. It was the first time he'd spoken, and Diana looked over at him.
     
"We can travel at speeds close to that of light itself." Donovan thought of asking if they'd proved or disproved Einstein's theory, but stopped when he realized they might well not know who Einstein was.
    They emerged onto a catwalk high above a considerable number of gleaming, golden-hued cylinders. The place looked vaguely like a refinery, with tracings of pipework running everywhere. A few technicians moved among the giant cylinders, examining and recording information from readouts and dials.
    Diana was continuing, "The other half of the ship contains the living quarters for the crew, as well as storage areas to hold the chemicals we'll be manufacturing here on Earth. They'll be contained within enormous cryogenic tanks to keep them-"
    "Cryogenic?" Kristine paused in her voice-over. "Super-cooled. For maximum efficiency in storage."
John chuckled. "You'll have to forgive Diana, Kristine. Like all scientists, she tends to forget at times that not all of us are as well-versed in technical language as she is."
     
"Now, you also mentioned living quarters for the crew," Kristine continued her voice-over. "How many of your people are on this ship?"
     
Diana hesitated for barely a second, but Donovan didn't miss her quick, sideways glance at her commander. "It ... varies ... Several thousand."
     
On this ship alone? How many does that make on all fifty or so ships? Donovan bit his lip, glancing over at Kristine, but she was intent on her next question.
    "Can we talk to some of them?" John smiled. "You can. You'll have a lot of opportunity for that."
The tour ended a few minutes later back in the docking bay. Diana, not John, accompanied the journalists and the secretary general back down to the UN Building.
     
Sitting aboard the Visitor shuttle (as far as Donovan could tell, it was the same one they'd come up in-but it was