"Modesitt, L E - The Parafaith War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

Trystin shook his head, and stepped back.
"While I believe, nothing you say, golem, can shake me." As the cell door shut, Trystin was certainly aware of the truth of the rev officer's convictions, and that nothing any outsider could say would shake his faith. Outside in the corridor, Trystin gathered himself together before entering the third cell, trying to ignore the more prevalent odor of ammonia and the ultrafine grit that seemed to settle everywhere in the blocks.
Trystin triggered the grate and stepped into the third cell.
The cold green eyes of the third rev looked at Trystin impassively, then his body lurched upward and toward the tech officer, almost as though independent of the rev himself.
Red seared through Trystin's system, more quickly than the mentally scripted alert system, or the report of electromuscular generation, and the door was opening as he kicked the rev backand threw himself out the door, triggering its emergency closure before he was quite clear of the cell.
His boots scraped the door, and some of the force of the explosion skidded him long the smooth stones of Block B, but he scrambled to his feet and looked back toward the bulging grate-door to the third cell. Wisps of greasy smoke curled through the bent frame of the door.
Blood dripped from the side of his jaw as Trystin scanned the corridor, then shook his head afid called his implant into the maintenance level Only the single cell was damaged.

Now the smell of explosives, smoke, and charred meat joined the fainter odor of ammonia. Trystin swallowed hard. "Ser?"
"We've got a new wrinkle, Ryla. Put this on-line, for all perimeter stations-no . . .I'll do it. "Trystin took another deep breath and walked slowly back up toward the control center. After the heavy door to Block B closed behind him, he off-lined the unarmed combat step-up and the acute hearing and slogged toward the console seat, where he slumped as he coded the transmission. He took a long swallow of Sustain and walked to the galley to mix more as he direct-fed the message through his implant.
"PerCon, from East Red Three. New rev tactic. Bio-electric detonation of organic explosives. . ." After checking the data picked up by the scanners, he went on to summarize the use of biologically generated electric fields to detonate pseudomuscle or bone mass that was actually a form of plasex. ". . . thus, scanners pick up no electronic components. The electric generation is apparently triggered by a crude form of biofeedback. Could be dangerous for interrogators or others in direct rev contact."
He poured the Sustain powder into the glass and stirred, taking the glass back to the console seat with him.
Almost as the report went direct-feed, Ulteena clicked in.
"Sounds nasty. How are you, machman?" "Sore. Few cuts. Angry, why don't they leave us alone?" " 'Cause the Prophet says we're the ungodly and golems. Or worse-descendants of the cursed immortals."
"Shit, we both fought the immortals. That's why old Earth and Newton are charred cinders."
"They've got a selective memory for history. You know that. So get some rest, and snap clean."
"I will. I will. After I download the interrogations and the info."
"Always the one to do it proper. "Her voice-direct-fed or not-gentled. "I try."
"I know." The last transmission was even softer before she off-lined.
He wondered what Ulteena looked like, since they'd never synced off duty. He shrugged. Probably not at all cuddly, but with shoulders broader than his and a nose sharper than a skimmer prow.
With another deep breath, he clicked into the log and began to itemize the results of the interrogation, including the facts that there might be as many as another sixty paragliders swirling into Mara's atmosphere, if they weren't already, not to mention that the troid ships were now carrying thirty in-system scouts, and that three more squads from the downed glider had yet to show up. He added the business about the insulation and the continued determination of the revs that Mara would fall to the Prophet. "Ser?" "Yes, Ryla?"
"You were right about the fabric on the revvie suits. Something new, and it's not only heat-shielding, but wave-transparent. I direct-lined the results to HQ, and they asked me to send a sample on the shuttle. It'll be ready for the afternoon pickup." "Stet."
When the log-out report was in-lined and out on the DistribNet, Trystin sat back in the command seat. Then he sat up and refocused on the scanners in the two cells holding the revs he hadn't interrogated. They scanned clean, right down to muscle density. "Trystin?" He looked up.
Gerfel stood beside him, stocky, dark-skinned, and dark-haired. "You ought to be careful. Could have been a rev."
"Shit. . . good luck. Revs up to some new stuff. In-feed the log before you scan." "Before?"
"I mean it. They got new suit shields and new tricks." "Praise their friggin' prophet."
"I wouldn't." He paused. "We pulled in five-in Block B. I only got through three of them. One of them exploded-suicide-type. There are two left. Can you handle them?"
"Can I handle them? I've been doing this longer than you have."
"I know. But B three is a mess. Rev was a live bomb. Bioorganic explosives. I did scans on the last two. They look clean, but be careful. Bastards really explode in your face."
"So that's why you look like that." "Yeah. Be careful."
"I will. Especially now." Gerfel paused and offered a slight smile. "One thing I like about you, Trystin. You're lucky, and that counts for a lot."
"Can't always afford to count on it. "Trystin climbed out of the command seat. "No. But it helps." "You ready?" "I've got it."
Trystin logged out and off-lined, sensing Gerfel's aura on the net as she slipped in. He cleared his throat. "The incense helps. Thanks."
"Not enough, pretty boy, but I'm glad it takes some of the edge off."
He forced a smile before turning. His legs felt watery as he walked toward his cubicle.
"Off-line, Ryla. Gerfel's on. Call her if another batch of revs pops up before you're relieved." It wasn't likely, not with the noncom relief a half a stan after the duty officer, but Trystin didn't know what else to say. "Stet, ser."
He trudged onward, thinking that he really should be going to the exercise room. He really should, but his feet carried him toward his cubicle, and his bunk.
He managed to lie down and close his eyes before the wave of blackness washed over him. Eight and a half hours on-line with an hour of step- up-too much, far too much.
"And He will love thee and bless thee and multiply thee; He will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, thy wine, and thine oil and all the works of thy forges and the works of the tools of thy tools, and the increase of all that He hath given thee in the worlds to which His Prophet hath brought thee, as He swore unto thy fathers and their fathers.
"Ye shall be blessed above all people, in all the worlds and mansions of thy Father, so long as ye shall follow the words of His Prophet.
"Ye shall consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver unto thee; thine eyes shall have no pity upon them; neither shall ye serve their gods, nor the gods of the land, nor the gods of the forge nor the gods of the coin, for those will be a snare unto ye.
"Do not say in thine hearts, those worlds are more than I; how are we to dispossess them?
"Be not afraid of the heathen, nor those that follow the false gods, nor those that would counsel unto thee, let us reason together; for well-crafted words are but a snare, and cannot stand before faith in thy Father the Lord.
"Listen to thy Father, and the words of the Prophet, and ye shall remember what the Lord God did unto Pharaoh, and unto those who surrendered their souls to the god of gold and precious metals, and unto those who saw not the many mansions in thy Father's house, and despaired in the dust of ancient Sodom, or those who despaired and perished upon the ashes of ancient Earth.
"The graven images of other gods ye shall burn with the fires of the heavens and the depths; ye shalt not take those technologies and those beliefs that are on them, nor take them into thee lest ye be snared therein, for such are an abomination to the Lord thy God, as spoken by His Prophet.
"Ye shall not be afrightened by them, for the Lord thy God is among thee, a mighty god and terrible. And He shall deliver their kings unto thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their names from under heaven. There shall be no man or woman to stand against thee, not even those who once would have lived forever, and ye shall render them unto dust and raise on that dust new mansions in thy Father's house, as it is His will...."
Book of Toren Original Edition

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