"David Drake - Belisarius 6 - The Dance Of Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

Earth was ruled by the so-called "new gods" which had evolved from men. In human terms, though, what
a Malwa victory meant in this 533rd Year of Christ was bad enough.

Laying the mine took some time, because the crew had to lower it slowly and carefully. There wasn't
really much danger of the charge going off simply due to a rough landing on the river bottom, especially
as muddy as theIndus was. But, understandably, no one wanted to take any chances.

Eventually, the lines grew slack. The heavy stone weight that had dragged the mine below the surface
had reached the bottom.

"About where we want it," Eusebius proclaimed, checking the marks on the lines. "She'll be sitting just
the right depth to cave in any ironclads the Malwa send at us."

By now, his crew had placed so many mines in the rivers that formed two sides of the Iron Triangle that
the rest was routine. The lines were hauled up, after the ends were released so they could slip easily
through the mine's handles. Very easily, since the shell of the mine was nothing more than an amphora
sealed to contain the charge and the air that kept it floating above the weight that anchored it to the river
bottom.

All that was left was the very thin wire that would transmit the detonation signal when given. Like all the
mines the Romans had placed in the Indus and theChenab , the mines were designed to be exploded on
command. It would have been possible to design contact fuses, but the things were tricky and Belisarius
saw no need for them.

In fact, mines with contact fuses could conceivably become a handicap. Belisarius wasn't expecting to
use the rivers for a rapid assault, but war was unpredictable. If he did find himself doing so, he didn't
want to be delayed by the dangerous and finicky work of removing the mines. With command detonation
mines, if need be, he could clear the rivers in less than a minute. Just blow up all the mines.

Eusebius leaned over the rail of theVictrix and handed the end of the signal wire to a soldier in a
rowboat. Moments later, while the soldier holding the wire kept a good grip on it, the other soldiers in the
boat rowed it ashore. The wire would join others in one of the many little mine bunkers that lined the
banks of both rivers in the Triangle. A spotter in the bunker would already have noted the location of the
mine.

Eusebius straightened. "And that's pretty much all there is to the business, General. The old emperor had
the right of it."

Grinning, then: "Much as he still pisses and moans about how much he'd like to build a submarine. But
the fact is that for the purpose of fending off those ironclads the Malwa are building upriver, these mines
will do the trick just fine. And it's a lot less risky than spar torpedoes."

"Not to mention a submarine," Belisarius chuckled. "All right. I just wanted to get a sense of how it was
going."

Had the Malwa been simply an Indian dynasty, they would not have posed a threat to the present world,
let alone that of the far future. Aide had showed Belisarius visions of both past and future. Indian nations
had often been rich and powerful and influential, and would be again; but never in the timeline that led to
Aide and those who created him had the men and women who ruledIndia looked beyond their own
subcontinent. Missionaries and traders fromIndia would turn most of Southeast Asia into a cultural