"Planet Of Twilight (Barbara Hambley)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

It happened, of course. Usually it meant that the comm watch was in the
break room. As a girl she'd had the annoying habit of coding and recoding comm
numbers every few seconds until she got results. It had taken her years to
break herself of it, to relax for a few moments, do something else, then try
again like a normal person.
But the situation wasn't normal. Though the Meridian sector included a
number of Republic planets and two major fleet strongholds at the Durren
orbital base and on Cybloc XII, Moff Getelles's satrapy in the Antemeridian
sector wasn't all that far away. And whereas she doubted he or his admirals
would try anything in the face of the combined firepower of the Borealis and
the Adamantine, the fact remained that her mission to the Chorios systems
wasn't widely known. If there was trouble, response time would be slow.
The bright-faced boys and girls of the Academy guard leapt to their feet
as she re-entered the anteroom. bringing their weapons to the present. Leia
returned the salute with a grave lifting of her hand.
"Marcopius, would you do me a favor? I know this sounds really paranoid,
but I've got a message light and I can't raise anyone in Comm.
Could I get you to go down there and see if it's anything urgent?"
"Of course, Your Excellency." He slung his weapon, bowed, and departed
like an advertisement for the Academy before she could get her thanks out of
her mouth. As Leia returned to her private parlor she smiled a little in
reflection. Several members of the Council-notably Q-Varx, who like most
Rationalists was enchanted by gadgetry-had moved to purchase an executive
honor guard of the new synthdroids, arguing that, in addition to eliminating
any further need to use the Noghri, it would be cheaper to maintain in the
long run and provide more uniform security with less chance of betrayal or
individual error.
Her desk-neatly arranged by See-Threepio, who had taken it on himself
periodically to pass through her stateroom like a golden hurricane of
tidiness-contained a very nicely produced ad-cube from the Loronar
Corporation's synthdroid division concerning the aesthetic quality, utter
reliability, high performance standards, and low cost (Hah! thought Leia) of
the new droids. "Hardly droids at all," the pleasant voice of the obviously
synthdroid announcer had lauded before Leia muted the sound. She had to hand
it to Loronar ("All the finest, all the first"): The cube had been in her
stateroom since the start of this mission and as far as she could tell hadn't
repeated itself yet.
Centrally Controlled Independent Replicant technology could allegedly
reproduce the watchfulness and defensive capabilities of the Noghri, though
she didn't believe it and wasn't sure she wanted something like that on the
open market. She had to admit, seeing Ashgad's three, that they were nice
looking, undoubtedly efficient, less aesthetically intrusive than droids, and
certainly less unsettling than Noghri.
Freed of standard droid memory system requirements, for all intents and
purposes they looked like human beings, if human beings were what you wanted.
She shook her head and sat down at the comm station again, suddenly
overwhelmed with fatigue. Members of Daysong, a splinter group of the Rights
of Sentience Party, claimed that an honor guard was a form of servile
humiliation and should be replaced by droids (Hadn't these people ever heard
of magnetic flux disruptors? But Leia didn't consider either Ezrakh or Yeoman