"Christopher Hinz - Paratwa 03 - The Paratwa" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hinz Christopher)

Empedocles, helping to mold our young warrior into an elegant bastion of Ash Ock authority, ready to
assume his place in the sphere of the royal Caste, to become the champion of all of Earth's Paratwa.

And for a time in those early years, I even doubted Sappho's wisdom in keeping AristotleтАФand thus
EmpedoclesтАФignorant of the greater reality. In Codrus's case, I understood. But I felt that Aristotle and
Empedocles should be given full access to Sappho's knowledgeтАФthe secret knowledgeтАФwhich at that
time she shared only with Theophrastus and a few trusted lieutenants: Gol-Gosonia, myself, a handful of
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others.

Eventually, however, I came to see that Sappho was correct in keeping Aristotle in the dark, for that
monarch's plans within plans began rivaling the complexity of even her own intrigues. The simple fact was:
Aristotle was too much like Sappho. There could be but one ruler, and SapphoтАФby virtue of birthright
aloneтАФwould be sole proprietress of our destiny.

Nevertheless, the day when I betrayed AristotleтАФand doomed Empedocles in the bargainтАФ-remains
the most regretted day of my life.

Gillian felt eager for another fight. The darkness of Sirak-Brath seemed an ideal place for one.

He followed Buff and the smuggler through the alley separating a pair of low-tech industriesтАФa nuke
breeder and a manufacturer of organic soak-dyeтАФthe dank passage cutting between the towering
buildings like a thin wafer sliced from a monstrous loaf. From the wet floor of the alley, the dirty
vacu-formed wallsтАФslabs of reinforced plastic veneered in ancient brickfaceтАФsoared over two hundred
feet up into the night sky. Shadowy forms interconnected the two buildings: a plethora of structural
support shafts, conduits, and soggy flexpipes. There were no windows.

A sliver of pale, yellowish gray light was exposed at the peaks of the artificial canyon, and that
illuminated snippet should have revealed the distant slabs of the Colony's cosmishield glass, and beyond,
the darkness of space. But the thirty-eight-mile-long orbiting cylinder had managed, over the two and a
half centuries of its existence, to acquire one of pre-Apocalyptic Earth's nastier habits: air pollution.
During peak manufacturing periods, the smog became so dense that Sirak-Brath's atmospheric
circulators could not remove it faster than it was being generated.

Buff turned to the smuggler. "How much farther?"

In the dim light of the alley, she was the shorter and thinner of the two figures. Weeks of hiding out with
Gillian in a Costeau exercise cone had enabled Buff to shed nearly fifty pounds. She remained stocky, but
there was little fat; upper

arms bulged with muscle, and her legs now boasted a strength and agility that she had never known at
her former weight.

The smuggler grunted. His name was Impleton, and he pointed ahead and whispered words that seemed
to dissolve in the dense air, even as Gillian leaned forward, straining to hear. But Buff had understood;
the black Costeau's firm nod provided assurance that Impleton's response gave no cause for alarm.