"Continuing Time - 98 - Lord November" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moran Daniel Keys)

Tyrel smiled without amusement. УIsnТt that always the case?Ф
The Source said politely, УFor humans.Ф

A day later, Tyrel sat on the beach in Ensenada, watching the bright blue
Pacific roll up onto the beach, and fall back. The days and nights on the rock
had taken their toll; even now, relaxing in a beach chair with a bottle of brown
beer in one hand, with the hot Mexican sun warming his muscles, Tyrel felt stiff
and uncertain in his movements.
He did not much like Mexican beaches; they were too close to Mexico City, and
the College, and got too many tourists. (Tourists from elsewhere InSystem, not
Out; the Face of Night did not allow OutSystem tourists on Earth. When mere
kilos of antimatter could devastate a world, the risk was too great.) But Tyrel
was not in the mood for another trip, and Ensenada was the furthest beach north
of Mexico City he could get to without crossing Southern CaliforniaТs Glass
Desert.
(Elsewhere in the Continuing Time, humans speaking of Уthe warФ generally mean
the war with the Sleem. InSystem, and particularly on Earth, this is not true.
The Sleem never hit Earth itself. Nearly six hundred years later, Terrans
referring to Уthe warФ usually mean the AI War, and the Revolution that followed
it: humans and the creations of humans caused the vast Glass Deserts.)
Shiva Enherod, sitting in a beach chair next to TyrelТs, said, УWho hates you?Ф
Tyrel shrugged. УWouldnТt know.Ф
Shiva Enherod nodded. Tyrel suspected the older man liked himЧhe had sought out
TyrelТs company more than once during TyrelТs six years at CollegeЧbut it was
hard to tell with night faces. And Shiva Enherod was not just a night face; he
was one of six living Shivas, of fourteen in the history of United Earth
Intelligence. After a moment Enherod said politely, УHome politics?Ф
Tyrel felt no inclination to dignify the comment with an answer.
Enherod nodded as though Tyrel had. Despite his suspicion of and distaste for
it, at times Tyrel appreciated the Source; unlike humans, it never belabored the
obviousЧ
Enherod said, УWhoever it was is still out there, Tyrel.Ф




Into a place where nothing lived, and nothing stirred, and shadows dreamed of
death, came a man.

Two thousand light years away from Earth and Tyrel November and the Face of
NightЕ
Еsixteen hundred light years away from November, at the other end of the
twisting long tunnels that linked November to Eloise, and Eloise to DevnetЕ
Еa human being named Bodhisatva brought his starship, the Shivering Bastard, out
of Devnet SystemТs First Gate. The Shivering Bastard entered real space moving
at better than ninety-eight percent of light, the same speed at which she had
entered the spacelace tunnel, back at the Eloisean planetary system.
Bodhi had missed the Gate at Eloise, his first four tries at entry. At .98C the
insertion beam had to sync the Gate perfectly on the first try. If he missed,
the Shivering Bastard would be a hundred thousand kilometers past the Gate by