"Stephen Goldin - The Sword Unswayed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goldin Stephen)

Rabinowitz sat behind her desk, lowered the lights in her office, closed her eyes and meditated for a
couple of minutes. Finally, as ready as she'd ever be, she started playing the holo to look into the face of
the enemy.

The scene was a circular outdoor arena at night. Blazing torches ringed the perimeter, but spotlights lit the
stage in the center. It cheered her slightly to note that the crowd was barely half the arena's capacity;
K'anal'orb might be popular, but he couldn't automatically pack an entire house. Rabinowitz gauged the
attendance at less than a thousand, but was willing to bet they made up in intensity what they lacked in
numbers.

Clothing seemed optional, serving mostly to keep out the nighttime chill; some people wore cloaks, some
had small bands of cloth on their shells, and other hardier souls had only painted patterns or jewelry.
There was no seating and everyone was in constant motion. It was apparently expected that the audience
would mill about and talk to their neighbors, at least before the show. It reminded her of the groundlings
at the old Globe, except that this audience was above the stage on the sloping sides of the bowl. "I guess
this restores the meaning of the word `stands,'" she muttered.

There was a bustle of activity around the stage. Rabinowitz's trained eyes could spot a small army of
stagehands moving purposefully in the shadows, tending to the million and one details a live show of this
sort required. Each helper was easily identified by an aqua-colored sash worn diagonally across the shell.
As she looked more closely, Rabinowitz could see more of the helpers moving through the audience and
talking with people, probably encouraging their enthusiasm.
There was a rising sense of anticipation swelling within the crowd, so when loudspeakers blared a
six-note fanfare and the lights on the stage dimmed, then rose, the people turned all their attention to the
center. On stage stood a K'tolu'tano Rabinowitz would have been unable to tell apart from the others
except that his somber gray robes wrapped with dignity around his body. He stood stock still, waiting for
the new tension to build. The audience continued to mill about silently, a backhanded tribute to Brownian
motion, but they moved much more slowly now, their eyestalks all fixed on the one individual.

Rabinowitz watched K'anal'orb move around the platform. The speaker would turn his attention in
different directions as he spoke, managing to face each section of the audience around him at least once
every couple of minutes -- classic theater-in-the-round staging. She watched his body rhythm, saw how
his movements followed a silent three-beat melody that started slowly and increased gradually to a
breathless pace; then, with one dramatic gesture, he would wave an arm and bring the tempo to a flashing
halt that left the audience panting before he started slowly to build the pattern again. She listened to his
voice, both the modulation and the cadence, perfectly synchronized to his movements around the stage --
again carefully calculated to carry his audience on an emotional roller coaster.

"Too repetitive a pattern," she muttered. "He'd lose a human audience after a while. But if the
K'tolu'tanou evolved along a shore with strong wave action, it might hit some primordial instinct. Yeah, it
probably works for them."

The show lasted less than an hour; then the spotlights went out briefly and came back on to brighten an
empty stage. The audience was screaming its approval, its hunger for more -- a hunger K'anal'orb would
not satisfy until his next performance. He knew how to keep his fish on the hook.

Rabinowitz watched the holo the first two times without turning on the translator. She didn't have to know
the words K'anal'orb was saying to understand what he meant, any more than she needed to speak
German to hear the message of _Triumph of the Will._ When she did finally turn the translator on, she
knew she was right; the speech itself was little more than vague generalizations. The delivery was what