"Centauri, Arrival" - читать интересную книгу автора (Meier Sid)

"Yes there are," she said, "but we get no respect because of it. And look at thisЕ" She pointed to an encrypted order from Central. "They want us to risk our brains, fry our neurons, to get them this data from the structure. Data we buy with the blood of our minds. They have no respect for us, here."
"We don't need respect," he answered. "We need anonymity, and we have it."
"No!" Her eyes flashed at him. "Not so. Respect is a commodity, and it can be traded on. It can buy entrance into forbidden spaces."
"But they will question us, Jellico," he answered. "When they know us, they will watch us." He watched her carefully. "What are you saying?"
"We should be known," she said. "We are strong enough."
He shook his head. "You are wrong." Her eyes flashed to him, angry, and he backed up a half-step. "You are wrong. Survey the Underground if you don't believe. Let them hear the arguments. But I must argue against you."
"You challenge me, Second?"
He nodded. Jellico considered for a moment. "Very well. But we know the Underground has already heard the arguments. It is a linked system." She stared at him until he looked away. "You are the identity known as Ghost. You are in the Underground, spreading your beliefs."
He shook his head. "Not true, leader. Not trueЕ"
"I have traced you." She stood up "I know you. But you don't know me. I am," she paused and lowered her voice to a whisper. "I am Sinder Roze."
"You! You are the identity preaching for independence?"
"Yes, my Second. And we will vote now." She fliplinked into the Underground, the secret cyberworld existing in the spaces between the new datalinks. And there she posed a question.
Independence?
As she and her Second waited a tally formed with blinding speed. The datacloud, thousands of identities, swirled and collected around one axis, and then the other. Yes, no, opinions formed and reformed, until the cloud coalesced around one answer only.
Independence. Sinder turned to her Second.
"You have sought to undermine me, Ghost, but the Underground has spoken. We will be known. And you will leave us."
He frowned, staring at the datacloud. Then he looked at her. "And you?"
She smiled. "I guess I am Sinder Roze, forever."

Episode 6, part 3

Reanna awakened in a sweat, so different from the calm peace that had possessed her since the Churn began. She gasped and touched her earsЕsurrounding her, she could hear a chorus of sound, humming off of the walls, and deep within that bed of sound she could hear the chattering of hundreds of strange voices, speaking in a language that seemed an echo of distant stars.
She pressed her ears more tightly, and the sound seemed to fade, but only a little. And now it seemed to her kind ofЕpleasant.
She got up and went out to the communal hall, padding on bare feet. She turned her head slowly, and with each turn the bed of sound shifted and changed, like light glittering off of a faceted jewel.
She turned backЕthere, a young tech looked at her, his face pulled into a mask of concern. His lips moved but his voice seemed so far away, lost in the chorus of sounds around her.
She walked toward him. She felt as if she were floating. The chorus rose up around her.
The young man's lips moved again, but she could not hear him. She saw his face as if in close-up, the sweat forming at his hairline. He seemed so anxious.
She smiled at him and reached out to pat his hand. She felt him grab at her, felt him striking at her. She tried to shout, and the chorus turned into a screech, splitting her skull. She tried to shout again, and then blackness overwhelmed her.


Centauri: Arrival, Episode 7

Reanna remembered. She remembered the day the two suns burned down from the sky, and the harsh calls of the attackers blended with the screams of the citizens in the tree lined streets of Gaian Base. Six years beforeЕ
She staggered across her clean, small room, breathing heavily, hearing the tears in her own voice. She clutched her belly, feeling its warm roundness, and deep genetic flares went off inside of herЕprotect this creature. She could feel the child in there, swelling and anxious (and after six monthsЕonly six Earth months!), and she clenched her muscles against releasing it into this world of fire. She could see the citizens outside in their green and white robes, grabbing their weapons and firing bolts in all directions.
Some kind of flash outside made her windows shunt to pitch black as the adjusters kicked in. When they faded again they were tinted blue, damaged. The shaded light and the cool feel of her walls gave her a moment of cocoon-like peace, and then a roar sounded outside and suddenly heat baked her face and torso as her outside wall melted down to a jagged line, poisonous vapor spewing out.
The fighting outside assaulted her senses...the lights and the sounds and the cries and the flames rushing skyward, gusting against her. She quickly rushed to her door and pushed it open, trying to retreat from the outside, deeper into the hab complex.
She looked down the long hallway to the exit. Coming toward her, still at a distance, strode a phalanx of Believers, their uniforms clean and sparse except for the holy symbols of rank on their arms, their eyes burning with a peculiar fire she could see even from this distance. What has Miriam done?
They were moving from door to door, blasting the locks and rooting out Gaians. They moved with a barely-controlled intensity she found almost awe-inspiring. One of them saw her and lifted his pistol. She half-turned and the man saw her belly and hesitated, for just an instant, and in that instant she lunged back into her room. Shredder bolts peppered the wall and cut into the flesh of her arm as she retreated. She cried out as a burst of warm blood spattered her face.
No time...
She rushed to her bathing room and snatched a soft bandage from the supply cabinet and quickly bound it on her arm. Blood pattered down around her feet and she felt a wave of nausea pass over her, but she gritted her teeth and pulled the bandage so tight she gasped.
Got to hold it togetherЕ
Now she heard the rattling at her door. She turned to the vaporized wall and headed out into the storm of battle, clutching her belly.

Episode 7, part 2

Outside, she stuck close to the burning buildings, using their heat to mask her from the infrared seekers. Above her the higher greenhouses shattered as the Believers threw fire and fragments of metal into the loose confederation of Gaian buildings. She saw massive splinters of glass falling from the sky, raining down on the Gaian soldiers in their green body armor. She saw a triangle of glass bisect a man cleanly, and she turned away.
That slender young man, months ago. The night on watch, out by the fields, as we put out the incense sticks and let the glowmites envelope us. The way his hands reached for me, with the glowmites exploding in my headЕI know there were too many of them that night.
She touched her belly. She hadnТt bothered looking for that man again, his face lost in a haze of glowmite-induced hallucinations. But it didnТt take long to know what their meeting had produced. And now, only six months (six!) later, she was about to see the fruits of it.
She stumbled into a skirmish, MiriamТs fanatical shock troops throwing themselves into the Gaian citizens and soldiers. She was so close she could see them, could see the ecstasy in their eyes, as they cast themselves forward and into a void that welcomed them.
There.