"David Drake - Hammer's Slammers 01 - Hammer's Slammers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

in civilian clothes."

Their vehicle was headed for the notch in the
sea cliffs. It was a river mouth as Tyi had assumed
from the spaceport, but human engineering had
overwhelmed everything natural about the site.

The river was covered and framed into a triangu-
lar plaza by concrete seawalls as high as those
reinforcing the corniche.

Salt water from the tide-choked sea even now
gleamed on the plaza, just as it was streaming
from the spaceport. FiguresтАФwomen as well as
men, Tyi thought, though it was hard to be sure
between the spray and the loose costumes they
wore here тАФwere pouring into the plaza as fast as
the water had left it.

For the most part the walls were sheer and ten
meters high, but there were broad stairs at each
apex of the plazaтАФtwo along the seaside east and
west and a third, defended by massive flood works,
that must have been built over the channel of the
river itself.

"What's the problem?" Tyi asked calmly. From
what he'd read, the battle lines on Bamberia were
pretty clearly drawn. The planetary government
was centered on Continent OneтАФwealthy and very
centralized, because the Pink River drained most
of the arable land on the continent. All the
uniquely-flavorful Bamberg tobacco could be barged
at minimal cost to Bamberg City and loaded in
bulk onto starships.

There hadn't been much official interest in Con-
tinent Two for over a century after the main set-
tlement. There was good land on Two, but it was
patchy and not nearly as easy to develop profitably
as One proved.

That didn't deter other groups who saw a chance
that looked good by their standards. Small starships
touched down in little market centers. Everything
was on a lesser scale: prices, quantities, and profit
margins. ...

But in time, the estimated total grew large