"Keith Laumer - Bolos 8 - Bolo Rising" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laumer Keith)

both holographic memory and heuristic acquisition functions. The check takes.0363 second and
reveals no anomalies. All operations and systems are nominal. I appear to be in perfect working
order.

And yet, as I have ascertained 12,873 times before, this cannot possibly be an accurate condition
assessment. Internal sensors register the presence of a 2.43-meter crater above my main suspension
rack and numerous anomalies in four right foretrack bogies. I sense extensive damage to both
primary and secondary circuitry, a loss of sensor and communications arrays, cripplingfadures in
my contra-gravity and battle screen systems, and numerous specific faults and system failures
which show a pattern of deliberate and intelligent sabotage rather than the random destruction of
battle damage. I note, too, that physical override blocks have been placed within myjusion plant,
limiting available power to a fraction of full potential, and that all onboard magazines of
expendable ordnance, including 240cm howitzer rounds, VLS missiles, and ready HeUbore needles, are
empty. My primary damage assessment routines indicate nominal operation, while my secondary battle
damage sensors show serious internal and external damage, and that all weapons save my


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antipersonnel batteries are inoperable. The resultant logical contradiction suggests deliberate
and hostile intervention.

The realization that my systems have been sabotaged rouses me from Normal Awareness to Full Battle
Alert;.00029 second later, however, the Masters' override cuts in and for the 12,874th time, my
working memory is erased and...

And...

All operations and systems are nominal. I appear to be in perfect working order.

I continue to look at the stars....


CHAPTER ONE

The stars were... astonishing.

Crouched in the mud-floored pit occupying what had once been Celeste's public square, Jaime Graham
lifted his eyes to the eastern sky, beyond the ragged, flash-melted stubble marking the former
site of Roland Towers. The dig was almost completely lost in darkness now, save for the gold-white
gleams of work lights and various species of hovering clacker. Despite the glare of lights from
the nearest floaters, the starclouds of Sagittarius filled the night sky with wonder and ice-
glittering beauty.

Strange, he thought, that such beauty could have masked such unspeakable death and horror.

Even so, it seemed sometimes as though the sight of the stars was all that kept him sane, a way to
lift him, however briefly, out of the living nightmare from which he and the other survivors could
never wake.