"Doyle, Debra And James D MacDonald - Mageworlds 02 - Starpilot's Grave" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Debra)

BLOCKADED, RESTRICTED, AND FORGOTTEN-THE MAGEWORLDS WOULD NEVER THREATEN THE REPUBLIC AGAIN.
A broken and drifting ship, its long-dead captain still strapped in the command seat: that's what free-spacers call a starpilot's grave. When one of these derelict craft appears in the Net, the artificial barrier zone separating the Republic from the Mageworlds, the discovery is no accident. It's a sign, a warning that the Mageworlds have not forgotten the Republic-and the Magelords make long plans.
But the Magelords weren't planning on Beka Rosselin-Metadi.
Beka has unfinished business to take care of, and his name is Ebenra D'Caer: the man who arranged her mother's murder. D'Caer is safe-he thinks-hidden among the Mages on the far side of the Net. Flying under a false name and false colors, Beka penetrates the Magezone and finds more than anyone expected: the Magelords have discovered a fatal weakness in the Republic's defenses, and are poised to wreak their vengeance on the hated enemy.
The Mages are too strong. They must prevail. Unless one woman in one ship can do the impossible.
MAGEWORLDS BOOK TWO:
STARPILOT'S GRAVE


For Peregrynne

NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

STARPILOT'S GRAVE

Copyright й 1995 by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

Cover art by Romas

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor.com

Torо is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN: 0-812-51705-9

First Tor edition: June 1993

Printed in the United States of America

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks this time are owed to Cliff Laufer, without whose (former) hard drive the manuscript for this book would have occupied far too many floppy disks; and to Kate Daniel, for checking this volume to see if it would make sense to someone who hadn't yet read The Price of the Stars.

Prologue
Pleyver: Flatlands
DARKNESS HAD fallen over the city. Light from the streetlamps lay in stark white circles against the warehouse walls, with pools of blackness falling in between. Overhead, the fixed star of High Station-Pleyver's giant orbiting spaceport-burned down through the skyglow: No one saw Owen Rosselin-Metadi pass by like an unheeded thought, skirting the edges of the lamplight and pausing to catch his breath in the safety of the dark.
He wasn't sure how long he'd been running. Hours, it felt like-ever since leaving his sister back at Florrie's Palace, in an upper room where the acrid stink of blaster fire mingled with the heavier smell of blood. He didn't think anybody had followed him out of there; he'd put most of his remaining energy into staying unseen, and Beka had taken care of the rest.
Owen didn't like the favor he'd asked from her, that she take on the risk of drawing away the armed pursuit, and he didn't particularly like himself for asking it. But Bee was a survivor, the kind who could fight her way from Rome's to the port quarter and blast off leaving a legend behind her. He'd seen that much clearly; far more clearly, in fact, than the outcome of is own business on Pleyver.
Nevertheless, he had lied to her.
Well, not exactly lied. But he had let her think that the datachip he'd given her, packed with information from the locked comp-files of Flatlands Investment, Ltd., was unique. He'd never mentioned the other datachip, the one that he'd come to Pleyver to obtain. The information on the second chip belonged to Errec Ransome, Master of the Adepts' Guild-or it would if Owen lived long enough to deliver it.
Maybe I should have given it to Bee.