"Herbert, Brian - The Butlerian Jihad" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

Meach nodded to himself, going through the much-drilled sequence. Always living under the specter of the machines, the Salusan Militia trained regularly for every scenario, as did Armada detachments for every major League system. "Activate the Holtzman scrambler shields around the planet and issue warnings to all commercial air and space traffic. I want the city's shield transmitter output up to full within ten minutes."

"That should be enough to brain-fry any thinking machine gelcircuitry," Xavier said with forced confidence. "We've all seen the tests." This, however, is not just a test.

Once the enemy encountered the defenses the Salusa's had installed, he hoped they would calculate their losses to be too heavy, and retreat. Thinking machines didn't like to take risks.

He stared at a panel. But there are so many of them.

Then he straightened from his summary screens, full of bad news. "Primero Meach, if our velocity data for the machine fleet is correct, even at deceleration speed, they are traveling almost as fast as the warning signal we received from our scouts."

"Then they could already be here!" said Quinto Wilby.

Now Meach reacted with sharp alarm, triggering a full emergency alert. "Sound evacuation orders! Open the underground shelters."

"Evacuation under way, sir," reported Cuarto Young moments later, her fingers working the update panels as she spoke. The intent young woman touched a communication wire at her temple. "We're sending Viceroy Butler all the information we have."

Serena is with him at the Hall of Parliament, Xavier realized, thinking of the Viceroy's nineteen-year-old daughter. His heart clenched with concern for her, yet he did not dare reveal his fear to his compatriots. Everything in its time and place.

In his mind he could see the many threads he needed to weave, doing his part while Primero Meach directed the overall defense. "Cuarto Chary, take a squadron and escort Viceroy Butler, his daughter, and all of the League representatives deep into the subterranean shelters."

"They should be heading there already, sir," the officer said.

Xavier gave him a stiff smile. "Do you trust politicians to do the smart thing first?" The cuarto ran to do as he was told.
Most histories are written by the winners of conflicts, but those written by the losers -- if they survive -- are often more interesting.

-- IBLIS GINJO,
The Landscape of Humanity



Secundus was a green world of temperate climate, home to hundreds of millions of free humans in the League of Nobles. Abundant water flowed through open aqueducts. Around the cultural and governmental center of Zimia, rolling hills were embroidered with vineyards and olive groves.

Moments before the machine attack, Serena Butler stepped onto the oratory stage in the great Hall of Parliament. Thanks to her dedicated public service, as well as special arrangements made by her father, she had been granted this opportunity to address the representatives.

Viceroy Manion Butler had privately counseled her to be subtle, to keep her points simple. "One step at a time, dear one. Our League is held together only by the threat of a common enemy, not by a set of shared values or beliefs. Never attack the lifestyles of the nobles."

This was only the third speech of her brief political career. In her earlier addresses, she had been overly strident -- not yet understanding the ballet of politics -- and her ideas had been met with a mixture of yawns and good-natured chuckles at her naivetщ. She wanted to end the practice of human slavery that had been adopted sporadically by some League worlds; she wanted to make every human equal, to ensure that all were fed and protected.

"Perhaps the truth hurts. I was trying to make them feel guilty."

"You only made them deaf to your words."

Serena had refined her speech to incorporate his advice, while still sticking to her principles. One step at a time. And she, too, would learn with each step. On the advice of her father, she had also spoken to like-minded representatives in private, rallying some support and gaining a few allies ahead of time.

Lifting her chin, adjusting her expression to look authoritative rather than eager, Serena positioned herself inside the recording shell that surrounded the podium like a geodesic dome. Her heart swelled with all the good she might be able to do. She felt warm light as the projection mechanism transmitted oversized images of her outside the dome enclosure.

A small screen atop the podium allowed her to see herself as they did: a soft face of classical beauty, with hypnotic lavender eyes and amber-brown hair highlighted by natural golden strands. On her left lapel she wore a white rose floweret from her own meticulously tended gardens. The projector made Serena look even more youthful, as the mechanism had been adjusted by nobles to mask the effect of years on their own features.

From his gilded box at the front of the audience, round-faced Viceroy Butler, in his finest robes of gold and black, smiled proudly at his daughter. The sigil of the League of Nobles adorned his lapel, an open human hand in gold outline, representing freedom.