"Keith Laumer - Bolos 9 - Bolo Strike" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laumer Keith)

And you shall succeed. It is foreordained, and
the gods have declared it to be so.
Elken wished he could savor some of the confidence he felt radiating
from the god's presence and mental bearing.
He had the feeling that earning immortality was not going to be easy.
***
Tami Morrigen stood on the rocky beach, feeling the cold wind from
Starside ruffling her hair a final time. Gods, she was going to miss this.
It would be full-light in another six hours; already the sun was
staining the eastern sky in golds and silver-blues with the slow-paced
advance of dawn. Northward, auroras flamed, billowing, silent curtains of
red and green and ultramarine shivering and flaring in the sky.
In the east, of course, Dis hung in golden-ringed glory, spectacular
as always. The banded giant, spanning close to twelve degrees of the sky,
was nearly full, the shadow of her arcing rings sharp and curved across
her pale green and pink cloud bands. By Dislight, the city dome of
Ghendai rose above its own reflection in the still waters of the bay.
Clouds gathered in the south, illuminated by Dislight, piling high to blot
out the few stars bright enough to shine through the bright Caernan
night.
Storm coming, she thought, then chuckled at the irony.
"Mother! It's time to go!"
She turned at her daughter's call. Marta, willowy slender, her long
brown hair in pleasant disarray from the sea wind, waved from the dunes
behind the beach.
"Coming!" she called back. She didn't want to go.
Morrigen had been among the first free humans to arrive on Caern,
five years ago. Pityr, her husband, had been an assistant manager to the
principal factor for Daimon Interstellar then, bright, eager, and looking
for the fast ladder up. Since then, he'd become a factor in his own right,
still ambitious, but less . . . frantic. That was the word. Less frantic
about commissions and percentages. There were more important things
in life. Caern was a beautiful world, a good place to live.
She hated what was about to happen, even though she'd helped set
the onrushing events in motion.
With a final lingering gaze at the low, deep-emerald swell of the
Storm Sea, she turned and scrambled up the rocks to the hard-beaten
path she'd descended from the dunes. On the plain beyond, at the edge
of a gold and scarlet forest of bloodtrees and leaf fungus, the tiny
corporate interstellar runabout was waiting, silver in the Dislight, coolant
spilling from its pressure vents in billowing white clouds of steam. Flat,
sleek, and hulled over with a mirrored surface that caught the light from
the sky like a faceted jewel, the runabout was their ticket to safety from
the approaching storm.
Men and their toys, she thought, bitter . . . then reproved herself.
There were as many women as men working within DI Corporation. And
the sleek little starship was their only way off this world, their only
escape from horror.
Damn, but she wished that escape wasn't necessary.
Most of the others were already on board. Her husband and daughter