"Colin Kapp - The Pattern of Chaos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kapp Colin)

The Patterns of Chaos (v2.0)

Colin Kapp, 1970

5.5.2002 Anaerobic - Scanning errors, broken paragraphs and missing quotes fixed




The Patterns of Chaos is a swashbuckling science fiction novel set in a far-distant future
when galactic colonization is far advanced and new, bizarre sciences, such as the prediction
of future events, are highly developed skills. Commander Bron has been sent by the
Commando Central Intelligence Bureau to seek and obliterate the Home World of the Destroyer
forces before they' take over the Galaxy. But both Destroyers and Commandos realize that
Bron's peculiar affinity for causing destruction has attracted alien attention -- in the form of
an armada of unimaginably lethal might which is directed at Bron, and which was sent from far
across the terrifying voids of space seven hundred million years ago -- especially for Bron ...
Colin Kapp




Chapter 1

The night was shattered by a hundred copper candles, pressor beams bearing down,
feathering the mighty bulk of a ship on to the centre of the city, bruising, the very bedrock
with resonant thunder. Green and violet, the lace traces of Yagi beams stabbed sharp
disruption into the fabric of the buildings, and the quick flick of lasers struck the fires which
completed the destruction. The city of Ashur on Onaris, mazed by the blistering savagery from
above, prepared to surrender. Resistance was suicide, and even acquiescence held no
guarantee of survival.
'Perhaps it started as a whisper in some white wilderness: the sick spite of a broken body,
cradled in cold, crying futility unto a futile wind: DON'T YOU KNOW THAT GOD IS DYING?'
In the uncertain shadows against a broken wall the figure of a young man lay in foetal
position, only partially aware of the devastation which raged around him. Such consciousness
as he bore was almost entirely consumed by a battle of equally desperate proportions deep
within his skull.
'Perhaps in the sordid cells of some inhuman inquisition a spirit snapped, the mind mazed
not by the searing steel, the nibbling nerve -- but by a vaster wound: DON'T YOU KNOW
THAT GOD IS DYING ... DYING ... ?'
The man moaned softly to himself and rose to a sitting position, cradling his face in his
hands. A Yagi beam, green and malignant, sliced the end from a nearby building, and the area
was deluged with falling bricks. He sank back, unable to fight.
'Perhaps some maimed martyr crazed upon the cross, held up his head and cried unto the
heavens: LORD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME? And was answered never: the ultimate
betrayal: the immaculate blasphemy ... HAS NOBODY EVEN TOLD YOU? THEY SAY THAT GOD
IS DEAD.'
 The young man climbed to his feet and started slowly and still unseeing across the littered
square. His uncertain path took him nearly into the beam of a probing Yagi, but fate and
guesswork diverted his feet. He blundered finally into the wall of a building, recoiling with a