"Anthony, Piers - Mode 01 - Virtual Mode" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

THE post of Cyng of Hiahtar was an enviable one, but it had its desperate drawback. A castle was provided, fully staffed and supplied. The Cyng's magic was virtually limitless. As long as he performed.

It was impossible to endure alone for long; every Cyng soon was depleted. The only practical way to survive was to marry a strong, abundantly happy woman, and draw on her resources until she was depleted, and then cast her aside in favor of a new one. Because the post was prominent and the perquisites excellent, many women were willing to endure this, and it was feasible to maintain a chain of marriages indefinitely. But Darius, new to the post, had rebelled after divorcing his second wife. She was not a bad person, and they got along well, but she was depleted. He did not want to marry a series of women for their life forces, daring to love none. He wanted to marry one for love, and to remain with her for the full tenure.

The wiser heads had nodded. It was often thus with newlings; they just had to learn from experience. Once a Cyng came to proper terms with the inevitable, he generally settled down and performed adequately.

Darius went to the Cyng of Pwer. "What are my options?" he inquired.

"If you will not heed the wisdom of experience, you must leam in your own fashion," the old man said. "You may marry for love, but you can not keep her long. She will die if you do not let her go in time. I think you will find it better to marry for other than love."

"The Modes," Darius said. "What are my options there?"

"The Modes are dangerous," the man reminded him. "Of every ten folk who risk them, three do not return. Of those who do return, half do not achieve their desire. This leaves about one in three who is successful. I do not recommend this course."

"You would have me suck the joy from endless innocent women instead?"

The Pwer shook his head. "No one forces them. They do it to escape poverty, nonentity, or pointlessness. It is a good bargain for them. They do not die, and they recover slowly after you turn them loose. It is a feasible system."

"Not as I see it!" Darius retorted. "I see love and marriage as ennobling."

"You are young."

"Tell me more about the Modes. What can I expect?"

"You can expect the unexpected. Do you understand the theory of it? "

"I understand only that when I appealed to the Cyng of Mngemnt, to provide me some better way, he sent me to you for the Modes. I never heard of them before."

"Then I will tell you in capsule what we know of them. As you surely do know, I handle the broadcasting of the magic power that enables all other magic to operate. That power must have a source. The first Cyng of Pwer found the source in the Modes. We have a number of what he termed Chips which enable us to relate to the realms beyond our own, and one of these has limitless raw power. He constructed mechanisms to harness this power and convert it to a form we can use. It is my special ability to channel it, and to keep the mechanisms operative. The Chips still relate to what seems to be an infinite number of other Modes. But we explore these others at our considerable risk. We conjecture that they are alternate realities, and that each Chip attunes to the spot where it would be in that other Mode. In many Modes that spot it empty, without even earth, water, or air, and whoever goes there immediately dies. In other Modes there is something there, but not what we like. We have brought back the bodies of those we have sent through, and they have been burned or dehydrated or mauled, as by some monster. But in some Modes there are worlds like ours, only different. By that I mean they may have a comfortable environment, and people, but those people have drastically different customs from ours. In fact, it seems that even the fundamental laws of magic differ in them, so that much of what is truth here is falsity there."

He looked hard at Darius. "We have located a region of fairly safe Modes. But even there, the risk is as I described. Also, there seems to be imprecision in the tuning of the Chip; no person seems to go to the same other Mode that any other person has been to. Thus we can not get to know any one of them well, and it is always a serious gamble. I suggest to you that it is unwise in the extreme for you to take this gamble, because not only do you risk your own life, you risk the welfare of our society, which truly needs your ability as Cyng of HIahtar."

"Another can assume the post," Darius said.

"But not one as talented as you. That is why it came to you, after the retirement of the prior Cyng of Hiahtar. You can be the best, and if we lose you, we will have only the next best, and that will hurt us all to some degree."

He spoke truth. Darius felt guilt. But it was not enough to sway him from his purpose. "What I may gain must be worth the risk," he said.

"Exactly what do you hope to gain?" Pwer asked sharply.

"A woman who will not be depleted by close association with me. A woman I can love and not lose. A woman I can marry and never divorce."

"There is no such woman."

"Not in this reality," Darius agreed. "But elsewhere, where other fundamental rules obtain, there may be women of another nature, who can not be depleted. If I can find one of them, and bring her back here-" He broke off, alarmed. "Can I bring her back?"

"Oh, yes. If you are in contact with her when you signal for the return, she will come with you. Your problem will be finding her-and if you do, convincing her to come with you. There are several problems in that connection."

"This has been done before?"