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

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poor and ignorant and, above all, incapable of space flight.
But if I fail, if the non-Salafi barbarians down below achieve interstellar travel, my home will be taken
and pillaged, my class will be cast down, and my entire civilization will be plunged into barbarism. And
KhanтАФhere Robinson looked up to see that Khan was an easy half dozen partnerings ahead of her
nearest competitionтАФKhan assures me that when a civilization like that meets one like ours, ours hasn't
a chance. If they can get to us, they can and will ruin us.
Unconsciously, Robinson lifted a thumb nail and began nervously to chew.
So I do what I must, dirty my hands, as I must, and fight . . . well, fight though others, of course; I can't
risk the loss of my fleet. That, above all, I must preserve.
Robinson laughed at himself. I must preserve it until it falls apart around me. Preserve it while the
Consensus back home does nothing to maintain it.
Dropping his thumb and shaking his head at the bloody damned frustration of it all, Robinson stood to
leave the hangar deck. He'd call the captain of the ship, Marguerite Wallenstein, later, if he needed sex.
For now he just needed to be alone.
Ahead of him, an oval hatchway dilated to permit the High Admiral passage. As the hatchway leading
off the hangar deck whooshed shut behind him, Robinson heard Khan frantically pleading for more.



25/10/462 AC, Parade Field, Balboa Base, Ninewa Province, Sumer

The troops in the camp stood in ranks and sang lustily and in their thousands:


"Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me."

Patricio Carrera, commander of the troops of the Legio del Cid in Sumer and of their thousands of
compadres in training back in Balboa, didn't join in the singing. Any other song and he might have. But
this song, a favorite of his late wife, Linda, figured prominently in one of the recurrent nightmares he
endured of her death, and of the deaths of their children. He just couldn't sing it. It was all he could do
not to cry. Instead, his blue eyes, normally fierce, became indescribably sad as, indeed, did his entire
face.
Carrera's closest friends stood or sat around his office, drinking Christmas cheer that had, until that
moment, seemed very cheerful indeed. Yet the mood the song brought to Carrera instantly transformed
the mood of every man and the two women in the place.
Two of those closest friends, Sergeant Major John McNamara and Legate Xavier Jiminez, both coal
black, very tall and whippet thin, looked meaningfully at each other. Note to the chief chaplain: next
year that particular song does not go in the Christmas program. The two women, Lourdes and Ruqaya,
exchanged glances as well. As much as the two blacks resembled each other, one could at least be


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