"Brown, Eric - Fall of Tartarus 01 - Destiny on Tartarus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Eric)

Eric Brown has published seven books so far, the most recent being his
novel PENUMBRA from Millennium. The eagerly-awaited first volume of
his `Virex' trilogy, NEW YORK NIGHTS, will be published by Gollancz in
May 2000.
DESTINY ON TARTARUS, while complete in itself, is the first story in his
`Fall of Tartarus' series. The other stories are: THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE
(SPECTRUM SF, forthcoming),THE PEOPLE OF THE NOVA, THE ESCHATARIUM
AT LYSSIA, A PRAYER FOR THE DEAD, VULPHEOUS and HUNTING THE
SLARQUE (INTERZONE 150, 122, 96, 129 & 141) plus DARK CALVARY (SF
AGE, January 1999).



DESTINY ON TARTARUS

ERIC BROWN



I'd heard many a tale about Tartarus Major: how certain continents
were technological backwaters five hundred years behind the times;
how the Church governed half the planet with a fist of iron, and yet
how, in the other half, a thousand bizarre and heretic cults prospered
too. I'd heard how a lone traveller was hardly safe upon the planet's
surface, prey to wild animals and cut-throats alike. Most of all I'd
heard that, in a hundred years, Tartarus would be annihilated when
its sun exploded in the magnificent stellar suicide of a nova.
It was hardly the planet on which to spend a year of one's youth н
and many friends had tried to warn me off the trip. But I was at that
age when high adventure would provide an exciting contrast to the
easy life I had lived so far. Besides, I had a valid reason for visiting
Tartarus, a mission no degree of risk could forestall.
I made the journey from Earth aboard a hyperlight sailship like
any other that plied the lanes between the Thousand Worlds. The
spaceport at Baudelaire resembled the one I had left at Athens four
days earlier: a forest of masts in which the sails of the ships were florid
blooms in a hundred pastel shades, contrasting with the stark geometry
of the monitoring towers and stabilising gantries. The port was the
planet's only concession to the modern day, though. Beyond, a hurly-
burly anarchy reigned, which to my pampered sensibilities seemed
positively medieval. In my naivety I had expected a rustic atmosphere,
sedate and unhurried.
The truth, when I stepped from the port and into the streets of the
capital city, was a rude awakening. Without mechanised transport,
the by-ways were thronged with hurrying pedestrians and carts drawn
by the local bovine-equivalent; without baffles to dampen the noise,
the city was a cacophony of clashing sounds: the constant din of
shouted conversation, the cries of vendors, the lowing moans of the
draft-animals. The streets were without the directional lasers in various
colours to guide one's way, without sliding walkways, and even without