"David Drake - RCN 01 - With the Lightnings" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

palace when WalterтАЩs supporters took stock -after the coup. It came loaded with a broad-ranging database which
could, now that Adele had completed her labors, access information from any of the computers in the government
network; better and faster than the computers could reach their own data, in most cases.
Adele rested her forehead against the consoleтАЩs smooth coolness and wondered whether starving on Bryce
would have been a better idea than accepting the Kostroman offer. But it had seemed so wonderful at the time. SheтАЩd
even told Mistress Boileau, тАЬItтАЩs too good to be true!тАЭ
Adele smiled. At least in hindsight she could credit herself with a flawlessly accurate analysis.
Adele was a Mundy of Chatsworth, one of CinnabarтАЩs most politically powerful families while she was growing
up, though the MundysтАЩ populist tendencies meant they were generally on the outs with their fellow magnates. Adele
hadnтАЩt been interested in politics. When she was sixteen sheтАЩd left Xenos for the Bryce Academy. Her choice was
made as much to avoid the alarms and street protests escalating into riots as for the opportunity to study the premier
collections of the human galaxy under Mistress Boileau.
That was fifteen terrestrial years ago. Three days -after Adele Mundy reached Bryce, the Speaker of the Cinnabar
Senate -announced that heтАЩd uncovered an -Alliance plot to overthrow the government of Cinnabar through native
agentsтАФprimarily members of the Mundy family. The Senate proscribed the traitors. Their property was confiscated
by the state or turned over to those who informed against them, and those proscribed were hunted down under
emergency regulations that were a license to kill.
Adele had a bank account on Bryce, but it was -intended to provide her first quarterтАЩs allowance rather than an
inheritance. Mistress Boileau herself replaced the support which had vanished with the Mundys of Chatsworth. Her
charity was partly from kindness, -because the old scholarтАЩs heart was as gentle as a lambтАЩs on any subject outside her
specialty: the collection and organization of knowledge.
But beyond kindness Mistress Boileau realized Adele was a student with abilities exceeding those of anyone
else she had trained in her long career. They worked on terms of increasing equality, AdeleтАЩs quickness balanced by
the breadth of information within Mistress BoileauтАЩs crystalline mind. Nothing was said, but both of them expected
Adele to take Mistress BoileauтАЩs place when the older woman died at her postтАФretirement was as unlikely a
possibility as the immediate end of the universe.
Maybe without the war . . .
Cinnabar and the Alliance had fought three wars in the past century. This fourth outbreak had less to do with the
so-called Three Circles Conspiracy than it did with the same trade, pride, and paranoia which had led to the earlier
conflicts. Those were politiciansтАЩ reasons and foolsтАЩ reasons; nothing that touched a scholar like Adele Mundy.
But the decree that came out of the Alliance capital on Pleasaunce touched her, for all that it was framed by
politicians and fools. The Academic Collections on Bryce were a national resource. Access to them by citizens of the
Republic of Cinnabar was to be strictly controlled.
Mistress Boileau suggested a way out of the crisis. She had friends on Pleasaunce. They couldnтАЩt exempt Adele
from the ruling, but they could make Adele an Alliance citizen as soon as she renounced Cinnabar nationality.
A moment earlier Adele would have described -herself as a citizen of learning and the galaxy, not of any national
boundary that tried to limit mankind. Cinnabar was a memory of the riots she saw in person and the slaughter she
missed by hours.
But she was a Mundy of Chatsworth, and she would be damned before any politician on Pleasaunce made her
say otherwise.
Then the Elector of Kostroma asked Mistress Boileau, Director of the Academic Collections on Bryce, to
recommend someone to run his new library. The -request had seemed a godsend at the time. Now . . .
Bracey cried in alarm. Adele raised her head.
Bracey sprang backward, bumping into the boxed remains of several electronic data units that might ante-date
the palace. One of his companion drunks vomited. Most of the yellowish gout cascaded onto a gunnysack filled with
loose paper of some kind, but splatters landed on BraceyтАЩs boots.
тАЬBracey,тАЭ Adele said, her voice a handclap, тАЬget out, and take your fellows with you. And stay out!тАЭ
тАЬAw, donтАЩt knot your panties, chiefie,тАЭ the assistant said. His boots were red suede; he tentatively rubbed the
toe of one against a pasteboard carton, smearing but not removing the splash of vomit. тАЬIтАЩll get one of the maids toтАФтАЭ
тАЬGet out, by God!тАЭ Adele said.