"David Drake - General 03 - The Anvil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

THE GENERAL, Volume Three

David Drake & S. M. Stirling




Contents

CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN


CHAPTER ONE

"Raj!" Thom Poplanich blurted.
Raj Whitehall's mouth quirked. "You sound more shocked this time," he
said.
The way you look, I am more shocked, Thom thought, blinking and
stretching a little. There was no physical need; his muscles didn't
stiffen while Center held him in stasis. But the psychological
satisfaction of movement was real enough, in its own way.
The silvered globe in which they stood didn't look different, and the
reflection showed Thom himself unchanged -- down to the shaving nick
in his chin and the tear in his tweed trousers. A slight, olive-skinned
young man in gentleman's hunting clothes, looking a little younger than
his twenty-five years. He'd cut his chin before they set out to explore
the vast tunnel-catacombs beneath the Governor's Palace in East
Residence. The trousers had been torn by a ricocheting pistol-bullet,
when the globe closed around them and Raj tried to shoot his way out.
Everything was just as it had been when Raj and he first stumbled into
the centrum of the being that called itself Sector Command and Control
Unit AZ12-bl4-cOOO Mk. XIV
That had been years ago, now.
Raj was the one who'd changed, living in the outer -- the real --
world. That had been obvious on the first visit, two years after their
parting. It was much more noticeable this time. They were of an age,