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

as her usual light-hearted and sexy self. Now we have the history behind
the myth, Daniel thought. Thanks to hieroglyphics. But a voice nagged
from the back of his head. Maybe you should be teaching these people
English instead. Nagada depended on agriculture and handicrafts-a
subsistence economy, but most of the work force had been miners. The
city was near a deposit of that quartz-like crystal used in so much of
Ra's technology. It had been a major export, even if the people had
gotten nothing back. it might become a paying export after the
scientists on Earth saw some of the items O'Neil brought back through
the StarGate. Daniel tried to caution Sha'uri's father Kasuf and other
city

Elders about terrestrial business ethics. But it was hard even to
explain what a corporation was. For Kasuf and the others, visitors
through the StarGate were friends, and perhaps heroes. Daniel could only
hope it would stay that way. Sha'uri shifted and sighed. She opened her
eyes, giving him a sleepy smile. "Dan-yer," she whispered, pronouncing
his name in her local tongue. Smiling back, Daniel decided to put his
worries on the back burner. The marble halls on the moonlet of Tuat were
not made for raised voices. Especially this hall, with its pyramidal
dome of crystal rising to a point far overhead. Not for the first time,
Thoth wondered why Ra had topped this particular structure with a dome
of viewing. Outside was merely airless rock, unblinking stars, and,
hanging in the sable sky, the grayish-blue bulk of the world this
moonlet circled. Even after ten millennia, the planet had yet to recover
from ecological catastrophe. According to the secret records, this is
where Ra had found his first servants, the hands that had built the
StarGates, the exoskeletal helmets, and the weapons that marked godhood
for Ra's human servants. The records hinted of a bargain being struck,
that Ra would take the inhabitants from their ruined planet to a new
ore. However, that world had turned out to be Ombos, the world of
blood. Thoth raised his eyes to consider the planet above. Whoever
those first servants had been, they'd built well. Even from this
distance he could make out the regular lines of their ruined
habitations. "Look at me, Ammit devour you!" Sebek's voice boomed and
echoed in the enclosed space. Sighing, Thoth redirected his regard to
the man prowling the pillared central aisle. He didn't know why Sebek
kept glancing around. He'd picked this spot for their clandestine
meeting. Thoth didn't mention that THREE other godlets-who-would-beRa
had chosen the same place. It was hard to believe that he and Sebek had
long ago been part of the same brood of tribute children sent to serve
Ra-pretty boys and girls. They'd grown up very differently. Thoth had
risen to head Ra's bureaucracy, becoming the accountant of the gods.
Physically, he resembled the headdress-creature that marked his godhood.
Thoth was the This-headed god-and the This was a stork-like bird.
Spindly of arms and legs, with an incipient potbelly, Thoth was not an
impressive sight in his white linen kilt. Sebek, on the other hand, was
the crocodile god, renowned for cruelty, one of Ra's planetary viceroys,
an overseer of overseers. He had the thick, muscular body of a warrior.
And if he didn't have the grace of lost Anubis, foremost of Ra's