"Sean McMullen - Souls in the Great Machine" - читать интересную книгу автора (McMullen Sean)

The Highliber sat back and tapped at the silent keys of an old
harpsichord that had been cut in half and bolted to the wall of her
office. Fergen rubbed plaster dust from his fingers. All the pieces
were covered in dust, as were the board, the furniture, and the floor.
The place was a shambles. Wires hung from holes in the ceiling, partly
completed systems of rods, pulleys, levers, pawls, gears, and shafts
were visible through gaps in the paneling, and other brass and steel
mechanisms protruded from holes in the floor. Occasionally a mechanism
would move.

Fergen gave the game his full attention, but Highliber Zarvora tapped
idly at the harpsichord keys and seldom glanced at the board. A rack
of several dozen marked gearwheels rearranged their alignment with a
soft rattle. The mechanisms were part of a signal system, the
Highliber had explained. Libris, the mayor ai library, had grown so
big that it was no longer possible to administer it using clerks and
messengers alone.

The Highliber leaned over and picked up a knight. With its base she
tipped over one of her own pawns, then another. Fergen had never
realized that she had such small, pale hands. Her knight toppled yet
another of her pawns, then turned as it finally claimed an enemy piece.
Such a tall, commanding woman, yet such small hands, thought Fergen,
mesmerized. The knight knocked another of its own pawns aside; then
his king fell.

For some moments he stared at the carnage on the board, the shock of
his defeat taking time to register. Anger, astonishment, suspicion,
incomprehension, and fear tore at him in turn. At last he looked up at
the Highliber.

"I must apologize for the surroundings again," she said in the remote
yet casual manner that she used even with the Mayor. "Did the mayhem
in here disturb your concentration?"

"Not at all," replied Fergen, rubbing his eye. Behind it the early
symptoms of a migraine headache were building. "I could play in a cow
shed and still beat anyone in the known world in less than fifty moves.
Do you know when I was last beaten at champions?"
The question had been rhetorical, but the Highliber knew the answer.

"1671 GW."

She tapped again at the silent keyboard. The little gears marked with
white dots clicked and rattled in their polished wooden frame.

"And now it's 1696," he said ruefully. "I've played you before, but
you never, never made moves like these."