"McCay, Bill - Stargate Rebellion" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCay Bill)

again. On the planet Abydos, Daniel Jackson looked up at the ceiling and
surreptitiously flexed his fingers in an attempt to bring circulation
back to his right arm. Not that he minded the reason for the lost blood
supply. Sha'uri's head lay across his biceps as she cuddled against
him, the fine features of her face burrowing into his chest. Daniel had
followed a strange road to get here. Fellow Egyptologists had dismissed
him as a crank for arguing that the sudden flowering of Nile
civilization must have its roots in an earlier culture. But he'd found
an artifact of that predecessor civilization on a hush-hush government
project. He'd christened it a StarGate from hieroglyphics connected with
the find. Then he'd been put to work deciphering cryptic signs on the
StarGate itself, which turned out to represent star constellations. His
key had allowed government scientists to unlock the StarGate. And,
accompanying a team of recon Marines, Daniel had been hurtled to this
strange planet to find Nagada, Sha'uri-and a vengeful semi-human
creature who ruled Abydos and other worlds as the sun god Ra. Daniel
helped rouse rebellion among the human slaves while the Marines and a
few young rebels battled Ra's guardsmen. Both Daniel and Sha'uri were
mortally wounded, only to be resurrected by Ra's extraterrestrial
technology-a strange quartz-crystal sarcophagus. Ra explained that his
technology had been the base of later Egyptian civilization, but his
earthly slaves had revolted, burying the StarGate. Now, millennia
later, he would punish the human homeworld through the reopened gate. He
would send an atomic bomb back to Colorado, amplifying its power with
his mysterious quartz-crystal. Revolt and the efforts of the Marines
forestalled that plan. In the end, the nuclear blast had destroyed Ra
himself. Daniel decided to stay on Abydos. The local population had not
only been used shamelessly, they'd been kept illiterate and ignorant of
their past. Daniel could teach them-while at the same time learning the
roots of Egyptian culture. Besides, he was living out an adventure of
the sort he'd only expected to see on movie screens. He'd even wed the
local chief's daughter. Daniel stared up at the cracked adobe-style
ceiling. There was much to be fixed here. He'd started by trying to
get the local population literate. In the past months, he had taught
hieroglyphics to a basic cadre-Sha'uri, several of the local Elders, and
a number of interested townsfolk. This first generation was now
teaching basic classes while Daniel gave advanced instruction. Today,
his postgrad workshop had met in the secret archives of Nagada.
Generations of secret scribes had filled the walls of a hidden room with
the true history of Ra's infamy, despite the sungod's proscription on
writing. One of Daniel's first actions was to copy these hieroglyphics.
He remembered Sha'uri's halting translation of one section. "When those
on Ombos rebelled, Hathor went forth as the Eye of Ra. She covered that
world in blood, till, wounded, she entered the vault of Ra to sleep ever
since." Daniel was reminded of an Egyptian myth. To foil a human
revolt, Ra sent cat-headed Hathor, goddess of lust and quick vengeance,
to slaughter the conspirators. But she developed a taste for blood,
planning to kill all of humanity. The gods, concerned at the loss of
worshipers, created a lake of beer stained with berry juice. The
bloodthirsty goddess drank it up, fell into a drunken sleep, and awoke