"Michael Moorcock - The Winds of Limbo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

non-stop to the forty-ninth level. Outside he crossed the bright, bustling
corridor and got into a crowded lift bound for the sixty-fifth-the
topmost-level.
The liveried operator recognized him and said deferentially: "Any tips for when
the next election's going to be held, Mr. Junnar?"
Junnar, abstracted, tried to smile politely. He shook his head. "Tomorrow, if
the RLMs had their way," he said. "But we're not worried. People have faith in
the Solrefs." He frowned. He had caught himself using a party slogan again.
Apparently the operator hadn't noticed, but Junnar thought he saw a hint of
irony in the man's eyes. He ignored it, frowned again, this time for a different
reason. Obviously people were losing faith in the Solar Referendum Party. A sign
of the times, he thought.
At length the elevator reached the sixty-fifth level and the operator called out
conscientiously: "Sixty-five. Please show appointment cards as you go through
the barrier."
The people began to shuffle out, some towards the transport that would take them
right across the vast plateau of the Top Level, some towards the distant
buildings comprising the Seat of Government, various Ministries and the private
accommodations of important statesmen, politicians and civil servants.
Built with the money of frightened businessmen during the war scares of the
1970s, the city had grown upwards and outwards so that it now covered almost
two-thirds of what was once the country of Switzerland-one vast building. A
warren with mountains embedded in it, it had begun as a warren of super-shelters
below the mountains. The war scares had died down, but the city had remained
along with the businessmen and, when the World Government was formed in 2005, it
seemed the natural place for the capital. In 2031, in a bid to get full rights
of citizenship for out-world settlers, the Solar Referendum Party had been
formed. Four years later it had risen to power. Its first act had been to
declare that from henceforth they were a Solar Government running the affairs of


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the Federation of Solar Planets.
But since then more than sixty years had passed. The Solrefs had lost much of
their original dynamism, having become the most powerfully conservative party in
the Solar House.
The official at the barrier knew Junnar and waved him through. Sun poured in
through the glass-alloy dome far above his head and the artificially scented air
was refreshing after the untainted stuff of the middle levels and the impure air
of the lowest.
He walked across the turf-covered plaza, listening to the splashing fountains
that at intervals glinted among beds of exotic flowers. He was struck by the
contrast between the hot excitement, the smell of sweat and the surge of bodies
he had just left, and this cool, well-controlled expanse, artificially
maintained yet as beautiful as anything nature could produce.
But he did not pause to savor the view. His pace was hurried compared with the
movement of the few other people who sauntered with dignity along the paths. At
a distance, the tall white, blue and silver buildings of the ambiguously named