"James P. Hogan - Hammer of Darkness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

thing is not, nagging feelings she cannot place.
She squints until her eyes close. She opens them again. Her
reflection awaits her.
"I don't understand, Martin. You're not registered ..."
Not registered ... a Query on your name ... blocked even
from the Duke's code ...
Kryn's words are clipped, and even without the underlying
concern he can sense, Martin knows of her unrest from the
shortened speech.
The courtyard, the one where they always meet, is chill, as
chill as the weather controls ever allow on the Planet of the
Prince Regent of the Empire of Man. The little winds shuffle
the small needles from the miniature cone-pines back and
forth along the interior walls. No shadows, for the overcast is
heavy enough to block the winter sun, and the climatizers
have not succeeded in dispersing the clouds.
Kryn shivers, and the blue-clad guard involuntarily steps
forward out of the corner, then back into the columns.
Always the guards, Martin reflects, always the trappings of
power.
His eyes flicker over the communit bracelet that links her
into the Regency data system, the blue leather overtunic that
costs more than his total tuition, the sunpearls on her ring fin-
gers.
He clears his throat.
"It's not that simple, Kryn." Not simple at all. He cannot
register for further grad study, not with the Query stamped
against his name.
No reason is given, and the junior registrar with whom
he'd managed to get a face-to-face appointment had not
known anything .... nothing except a few vague thought
fragments unvoiced to Martin.
... has to be dangerous ... deadly ... not even Darin will
meet him ... why me?... Darin's ex-Marine ... afraid of a
student... why me?
"The real reason?" Martin had pressed.
"Imperial Security, Citizen Mattel. That is all the Univer-
sity is told." Her smooth dark brow and open thoughts had
revealed nothing else, even when he had probed deeply. And
no one wanted to talk to him.
That had been it. Someone, somehow, had fed the results
of the damned paracomm tests to Imperial Security, and he
was out of grad school and on his way to the mines or the
Marines ... the only employment open to someone who was
Queried.
"Why not?" snaps Kryn, her cold words bringing him back
from his thoughts into the chill of the Commannex courtyard.
"Because I can't get a job, any job, on Karnak. With no
credits, I can't free-lance. If I could, no one could hire my
services. So it's either off Karnak, or the Marines and off