"Tom Kratman - Carerra 2 - Carnifex" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kratman Tom)

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 - Chapter 1




PART I
Chapter One
But my dreams
They aren't as empty
As my conscience seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That's never free
тАФThe Who, Behind Blue Eyes




25/10/462 AC, United Earth Peace Fleet Starship Spirit of Peace

The traditional Christmas orgy was in full swing on the hangar deck. Since it was supposed to be a time
to celebrate universal brotherhood, even the proles were invited. Indeed, so universal was the sense of
brotherhood implicit in the season that Lieutenant Commander Khan, the fleet's sociology officer, was
laying, rear up and breasts down, on an ottoman with a prole at each end, one in each hand and short
lines emanating in four directions. Khan's husband cheered her on. And why not? He had bet a month's
salary on her performance for the night.
Sitting on a plain chair on an elevated dais, High Admiral Martin Robinson, Commander of the United
Earth Peace Fleet, watched through his blue-gray eyes without much interest. In truth, Robinson was
bored silly by the whole thing. It's as bad as a party back home. Same old faces, same old
events . . . same old, same old. Bah. Never anything new.
Robinson had reason to be bored. Though he looked to be in his mid-twenties, face unlined and back
unstooped, the High Admiral was a beneficiary of the best anti-agathic therapy Old Earth could provide.
His blond hair was untouched by gray and without any recession in his hairline.
On the other hand, Robinson had had better than two centuries in which to grow bored, two centuries of
peace, two centuries of orgies, two centuries of . . . Well . . . nothing, really. Nothing until I came here.
This, at least, hasn't been boring. It's been frustrating.
Frustration wasn't the half of it. Mixed in, and perhaps in greater quantity than the frustration, was fear;
fear for his class, fear for their rule, and fear for his planet.
And there's nothing for it but to change the cesspool down below from a near cognate of Earth, as it
was, into a perfect clone of Earth, as it is. That, or plunge the whole thing into a Salafi sect dark age.
Either would be acceptable. Indeed, having the planet fall under the Salafis would probably leave my
world safer. Let them be content to pray five times a day to a non-existent god via a rock in a building in
a nothing-too-much city. Let them keep better than half their people as cattle. Let them keep themselves