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

who aren't Therans, who just want to survive. Unless something is done to
wrest control of the old gun stations away from the Theran cultists, who
forbid any kind of interplanetary trade, these people are going to continue to
live like... like the agricultural slaves they once were. There's a strong
Rationalist Party on Nam Chorios, and it's growing stronger. We want planetary
trade with the New Republic. We want technology and proper exploitation of the
planet's resources. Is that so harmful?"
"The majority of the planet's inhabitants think it is."
Ashgad gestured furiously. "The majority of the planet's inhabitants have
been brainwashed by half a dozen lunatics who get loaded on brachniel root and
wander around the wasteland having conversations with rocks! If they want
their crops to fail and their children to die because they refuse to come into
the modern world, that's their business, I suppose, though it breaks my heart
to see it. But they're forbidding Newcomers entrance into the modern world as
well!"
Though she knew that Dzym would undoubtedly back up anything Ashgad said-
as the man's secretary he could scarcely do otherwise-Leia turned to the
Chorian. He was still sitting without a word, staring into space, as if
concentrating on some other matter entirely, though now and then he would
glance at the chronometer on the wall. Beside him, the port offered a
spectacular view of the ice green and lavender curve of Brachnis Chorios, the
farthest-flung planet of the several systems that went by that name, whose
largest moon had been designated as the orbital rendezvous of the secret
meeting.
The escort cruiser Adamantine was just visible at the edge of the view, a
blunt-nosed silvery shape, unreal in the starlight. Below it, close to the
bright triangle of colored stars that were the primaries of Brachnis, Nam, and
Pedducis Chorii and pathetically tiny against the cruiser's bulk, hung the
cluster of linked bronze hulls that was Seti Ashgad's vessel, the Light of
Reason. Even Leia's flagship, the Borealis, dwarfed it. Assembled of such
small craft as could slip singly through the watchful screens of Nam Chorios's
ancient defensive installations, the Light would barely have served as a
planet-hopper; it could never have taken a hyperspace jump.
Hence, thought Leia uneasily, this mission. Even before she'd had the
surreptitious message, their distance from the nearest bases of the New
Republic's power on Durren and their proximity to the onetime Imperial satrapy
of the Antemeridian sector, made her nervous.
Was that all that note had meant? Or was there something more?
"The Theran cultists are not anyone into whose hands I would be willing
to place my destiny, Your Excellency," murmured Dzym. He seemed to draw
himself back into the conversation with an effort, folding his small hands in
their violet leather gloves. "They hold an astonishing amount of power in the
Oldtimer settlements along the water seams. How could it be otherwise when
they are armed, mobile, and have for generations been the only source of
healing that these people have known?"
Beyond the dyanthis leaves that masked the edges of the observation port,
Leia's eye was caught by a flickering of the lights along the Adamantine's
gleaming sides. She saw that in the rear quarter of the escort ship, a number
of them had blinked out.
"What do you mean, you can't get through?" Commander Zoalin turned,