"L. E. Modesitt - The Hammer of Darkness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

Part I

The Planet of Eternal Light

I

In toward Galactic Center, the myth implies, there is a star so hot it is a mere (lot in the sky of that planet
where the God of Darkness and the Lady of Light live- Just as this sun has only one planet, so is there
only one God, the God of Darkness.

In fact, stars that hot, FO or hotter, don't have planets. And if they did, the star wouldn't last long enough
to allow planetary development of a terrestrial environment.

Even if such a god existed and if he could build a planet from scratch, why would he be humanoid or
interested in humanity?

--Lectures on Pan-Humanoid Myths

Prester Smythe Kinsel

University of New Augusta

1211 A.O.E.




II

The young woman sits on the edge of the ornate bed where she is being watched.

"Everyone watches the Duke's daughter," she says in a low voice. Even the Duke's security force. More
since the accident, she suspects. She cannot remember much of what she knows she should know.

The Duchess was solicitous, and her father the Duke growled. Yet he cares.

She frowns and leans forward, letting her long black hair flood over the shoulders of her pale blue travel
suit.

Why should her memories be so cloudy? She can remember everything since she returned so clearly, but
the people around her, the rooms, they all have a clarity that the past does not have.

Yet she belongs. The well-thumbed holobook in her father's study shows images of her growing up,
standing at her father's knee, holding his hand.

Perhaps her studies at the Institute will help. Perhaps time will remove the awkwardness of relearning her
past. Perhaps...

"Back into the fishbulb," she says out loud, crossing the room that would have held five of the single
sleeping room she had occupied at Lady Persis'.