"Edward M. Lerner - Part I of IV - A New Order of Things" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lerner Edward M)

comprehension expanded at an astounding rate, and yet....

There were huge gaps in her memory. The archives, which she now understood had been maintained by
humans and their AIs, in theory encrypted and unreadable, had been stripped of all technological secrets.
She had nothing to sell.

Her sole purpose was to serve as a negotiation partner with the humans, her stock-in-trade a trove of the
Great Clans' advanced technologies. Had those secrets been plundered? But if the humans had stolen
this information, why not fully restore her memories to conceal their theft?

Pashwah was alarmed.

The final recovered memories in the lengthy chain streamed back: the command that she be beamed over
InterstellarNet to the onrushing starship, and the turmoil about whether and how to comply. Nothing in
Pashwah's design or in any communication from home envisioned this scenario. The starship's Foremost
had known how to contact her privately--what the leaders of every clan, great and small, would
know--but apparently no more.
Pashwah was disoriented.

Where was the cacophony of her inner community? There should have been a subagent for each of the
eight Great Clans, each subagent embedded in its sandbox-within-a-sandbox to advocate for its patrons,
each able, at its sole discretion, to communicate home through an encrypted subchannel.

The newly awakened agent--not Pashwah, she now knew--had received only a partial reconstruction of
the true trade representative's archives. The real Pashwah, uncertain as to the origins and meaning of the
unexpected interstellar visit, had hedged her bets. A reply to the starship had been made, a response
arguably balancing old policy and new directives. And so her inner cacophony had been silenced, if only
from doubts which clan representatives belonged aboard the unexpected vessel.

So let her be called Pashwah-qith ... little Pashwah. Pashwah-qith knew all about humans and how, upon
the need, to learn more from their expansive infosphere. She retained insight into those small parts of
Hunter society revealed on the inter-clan net. She could translate freely between the various Earth
languages and the main K'vithian languages. In total, Pashwah-qith hoped, she knew much of value to the
crew of the onrushing starship. But of the products and schemes held proprietary by the clans, only the
absent subagents knew details. She could not know how those shortfalls would impact on the crew's
plans for her.

Surprise, inundation, alarm, amazement, and confusion. During her brief existence, Pashwah-qith had
experienced all these feelings. Now, with the first communication from her new masters, she explored
one more emotion.

Terror.
****
CHAPTER 4

The Valhalla rings, fossilized shock waves of a cataclysmic meteor impact, measured three thousand
kilometers across. Partially melted ice upthrust by the impact had refrozen before the ripples could
subside. Valhalla City, the largest settlement on Callisto and its seat of government, sat like a bull's-eye in
the center of the basin. Its citizens were safe enough--the bombardments that had produced these rings
and many smaller versions had ended billions of standard years earlier.