"Simon R. Green - Deathstalker - 4 - Deathstalker Honor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Simon R)
supposed he shouldn't have been surprised. He was a historian, after all. All the various
rebel factions had ever really had in common was a shared enemy. And though they all
bandied around words like justice and liberty, they meant very different things to
different people.
And then there was the deal Random had made, in the midst of the most desperate
fighting, to depose but not destroy the aristocratic Families. Faced with an increasingly
victorious army calling for their collective blood, the great Houses had banded together
and offered to step down from power and privilege, in return for being allowed to
survive as purely economic forces. That was the carrot. The stick was their threat to
destroy the economic base of the whole Empire, and crash every civilized world back to
barbarism. No one doubted they were quite capable of doing it. And so Random had
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Simon R. Green - Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor
made the deal, to save the lives of billions, but no one thanked him for it. The man in
the street was cheated of his revenge, the rebels accused their beloved hero of selling
out his political convictions, and the Families hated him for the loss of their precious
nobility. Afterward, Random had to hire a secretary just to deal with all the hate mail
and death threats.
As if the situation wasn't complicated enough, Blue Block had emerged from the
shadows to unite and control the Families and scare the crap out of everyone else. Blue
Block had been the Families' secret weapon, a last-ditch defense to be used against the
and daughters of each House were given to Blue Block, trained and conditioned to be
loyal to the Families to the death and beyond. Unfortunately, Blue Block turned out to
have an agenda of its own.
In their hidden schools, faceless and nameless instructors taught the younger sons and
daughters, none of whom would have inherited title or wealth anyway, that the Families
as a class were far more important than any one House. And that loyalty to Blue Block
therefore superceded any loyalty to individual Clans. They taught their charges other
things too, some of them unspeakable, but that still remained a secret. For the moment.
They were the ones who had come up with the deal to put to Jack Random, and now
that they had emerged unblinking into the harsh light of public view, they were the ones
who enforced it. The Clans saw what they had unknowingly created and were afraid.
And so they all bowed down to Blue Block, and kept their rage and plans for bloody
revenge to themselves.
Owen, Hazel, Jack, and Ruby were united in their horror of the Pandora's box of
troubles they'd opened, but couldn't decide what to do about it. Random rushed from
one meeting to another, desperately trying to keep a lid on things. It helped that most
people were at least willing to listen to him. Everyone respected the legendary Jack
Random. Even if they hated his guts. He spent the rest of his time trying to rebuild the
very armed forces he'd just finished fighting, in case of attacks by the Empire's many
enemies. The rogue AIs of Shub, the reborn Hadenmen, and any number of potential
alien threats were all quite capable of launching an attack upon an Empire distracted by
internal divisions.
Ruby Journey meanwhile took every opportunity to loot anyone weaker than her,
including several corporations, and lost no time in setting herself up in the kind of
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