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

Somehow, the long row of garments hanging in the wardrobing room does not surprise her, although she
has not remembered them. She walks through the wardrobe to the tiles and direct light of the bath.
Neither does she remember its luxury. Half shrugging, she catches sight of herself in one of the full-length
mirrors.

"Disheveled," she observes, looking at her hair. Something is right about it, for the first time in a long
while, and something is not, nagging feelings she cannot place.

She squints until her eyes close. She opens them again. Her reflection awaits her.

III

"I don't understand, Martin. You're not registered ..."

Not registered . . . a Query on your name . . , blocked even from the Duke's code , . .

Kryn's words are clipped, and even without the underlying concern he can sense, Martin knows of her
unrest from the shortened speech.

The courtyard, the one where they always meet, is chill, as chill as the weather controls ever allow on the
Planet of the Prince Regent of the Empire of Man. The little winds shuffle the small needles from the
miniature cone-pines back and forth along the interior walls. No shadows, for the overcast is heavy
enough to block the winter sun, and the climatizers have not succeeded in dispersing the clouds.

Kryn shivers, and the blue-clad guard involuntarily steps forward out of the corner, then back into the
columns.

Always the guards. Martin reflects, always the trappings of power.

His eyes flicker over the communit bracelet that links her into the Regency data system, the blue leather
overtunic that costs more than his total tuition, the sunpearls on her ring fingers. He clears his throat.

"It's not that simple, Kryn." Not simple at all. He cannot register for further grad study, not with the
Query stamped against his name.

No reason is given, and the junior registrar with whom he'd managed to get a face-to-face appointment
had not known anything ..,. nothing except a few vague thought fragments unvoiced to Martin.

. . . has to be dangerous . . . deadly . . . not even Darin will meet him . . . why me? , . . Darin's ex'Marine
. . . afraid of a student . . . why me?

"The real reason?" Martin had pressed. "Imperial Security, Citizen MarteL That is all the University is told."
Her smooth dark brow and open thoughts had revealed nothing else, even when he had probed deeply.
And no one wanted to talk to him.

That had been it. Someone, somehow, had fed the results of the damned paracomm tests to Imperial
Security, and he was out of grad school and on his way to the mines or the Marines . . - the only
employment open to someone who was Queried.