"Avatar 2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Avatar)

made Odo more receptive to him. Odo was, in fact, mostly indifferent; Laas
wasn't going to convince him of anything.

"It's decided that the Vorta will take soldiers to abolish unrest," Laas said.

Odo nodded, sighing. It had never really been in question, but he would keep
proposing peaceful options, even knowing that they might fail. That was
certainly one reason there was still such resistance to his thoughts; many had
already decided his interests made him unreliable, unstable, and refused to
listen.

Laas stepped closer, his own opinion clear in his voice, toneless but somehow
slightly sneering. "We still don't think that anything will come of your
plan," he said.

Odo scowled, turning to look up at him. "You speak for the Link now, Laas?"

"Most of it." The changeling didn't back down, but Odo noted that he didn't
presume any further, either. "They're willing to wait and see what happens . .
. but they believe the Alpha Quadrant will strike, as soon as they see an
opportunity. The treaty was our death warrant. Solids are incapable of
changing their prejudices."

Odo had heard it before, and it never ceased to amaze him. "It's as if they
forgot who started the war," he scoffed.

Laas was getting angry. "We didn't attempt genocide. We didn't try to murder
them all with disease."

It was a point often argued within the Link, its form at times distorted by
the discord. Odo shook

his head, always disheartened that he had to explain it again.

But if I repeat it often enough . . . He hoped, he proposed and reasoned, and
until his persistence bore fruit, it was the best he could do. They would
eventually get tired of his arguments and their own fear, it was inevitable,
and then some would try listening to reason. The Link was stubborn, and it was
angry and hurt . . . but he didn't believe that it was incapable of change.

"We are not all alike, as fragments of the LinkЧ do you judge the Link by my
actions?" Odo asked. "The disease was the work of extremists, a very few among
very many, and only then because the Link had aroused the very fears and
prejudices you ascribe to them. Inciting wars among the Alpha powers,
abduction, terrorism, invasion . . ."

Laas frowned, the pity on his face infinitely worse for Odo than his contempt.
"They tried to destroy the Link, Odo. Your obsession with promoting them, it
isn't right. We are One, and you are One."