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

gowns and jewelry. He could almost smell the scents of perfume and
pomade and sweat. Off to one side the orchestra played, the soft rhythm
of the steel drums cutting through the mellow brass of trumpets and the
rattle of marachaz. Silence spread like a ripple through the crowd as
the Gubernatorial Guard troopers clanked into the room. Their black-
and-silver uniforms and nickel-plated breastplates shone, but the
rifles in their hands were very functional. The officer leading them
bowed stiffly before Raj.
"General Whitehall -- " he began, holding up a letter sealed with the
purple-and-gold of a Governor's Warrant.

***
"Barholm doesn't deserve to have a man like you serving him," Thom
burst out.
"Oh, I agree," Raj said. For a moment his rueful grin made him seem
boyish again, all but the eyes.
"Then stay here," Thom urged. "Center could hold you in stasis, like
me, until long after Barholm is dust. And while we wait, we can be
learning everything. All the knowledge in the human universe. Center's
been teaching me things . . . things you couldn't imagine."
"The problem is, Thom, I'm serving the Spirit of Man of the Stars.
Whose Viceregent on Earth -- "
bellevue, Center said.
" -- Viceregent on Bellevue happens to be Barholm Clerett. Besides the
fact that my wife and friends are waiting for me; and frankly, I
wouldn't want my troops in anyone else's hands right now, either." He
sighed. "Most of all . . . well, you always were a scholar, Thom. I'm a
soldier; and the Spirit has called me to serve as a soldier. If I die,
that goes with the profession. And all men die, in the end."
essentially correct, Center noted, its machine-voice more somber than
usual. restoring interstellar civilization on bellevue and to humanity
in general is an aim worth more than any single life. A pause, more
than any million lives.
Raj nodded. "And besides . . . in a year, I may die. Or Barholm may
die. Or the dog may learn how to sing."
They made the embrhazo of close friends, touching each cheek. Thom
froze again; Raj swallowed and looked away. He had seen many men die.
Too many to count, over the last few years, and he saw them again in
his dreams far more often than he wished. This frozen un-death
disturbed him in a way the windrows of corpses after a battle did not.
No breath, no heartbeat, the chill of a corpse -- yet Thom lived.
Lived, and did not age.
He stepped out of the doorway that appeared silently in the mirrored
sphere, into the tunnel with its carpet of bones -- the bones of
those Center had rejected over the years as it waited for the man who
would be its sword in the world.
Then again, he thought, stasis isn't so bad, when you consider the
alternatives.

***