"William H. Keith Jr. - Warstrider 02 - Rebellion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Keith jr William H)

ISBN: 0-380-76880-1

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reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form
whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law.
For information address The Ethan Ellenberg Literary
Agency. 548 Broadway. #5-E, New York. New York 10012.

First AvoNova Printing: June 1993

AVON TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND IN
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Printed in Canada

UNV 10 98765432
 Prologue


There was RockтАж and there was ┬╗self┬л, the former
parting for the latter in the flux of powerful magnetic fields.
A universe of rock subtly textured and diverse surrounded
┬╗self┬л in a warm and comforting embrace that flowed
around ┬╗self's┬л shell with semimolten plasticity as it
burrowed upward through the yielding strata. Behind lay the
depths of Mother Rock; ahead, closer now, was the goal, a
concentration of riches undreamed of, a magnetic anomaly
tasting of deliciously, dizzyingly pure metals, ceramics, and
hydrocarbon compounds.
┬╗Self┬л could sense its universe in myriad ways: through
density and water content and something that might be
called the taste of silica, quartz, limestone, metal-sharp
ores, and hydrocarbons; through the tug of gravity; through
magnetic fields and the far weaker trickle of electrons
within the Rock; through the life-giving heat of
encompassing Rock and the dimly sensed "flavor" of
remarkably concentrated metals now so close ahead.
Though ┬╗self's┬л concept of time was not, strictly
speaking, linear, it knew that it wouldn't be much longer
now.
Dimly, ┬╗self┬л remembered Self, a far vaster progenitor
of ┬╗self┬л now far below and behind the upward threading
fragment. It shared Self's perception of the universe, of
course, though it remembered only dream-vague slivers of
its past life. Self's view of the universe was shaped by its
evolutionary genesis eons past in the bowels of another
world light-millennia distant, and by a harshly Boolean logic
that perceived its surroundings in terms of yes and no, of
Self and not-Self of Rock and not-Rock. It did not, could