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

allied to the House of November and dependent upon it for protection, though not
a November colony proper as Devnet had been. Bodhi hoped they were still there,
and doubted they would be; Ugly looked like the opening act of war to him.
Imhota had three Gates, all well off the ecliptic; DevnetТs Sixth Gate linked to
ImhotaТs Second. Bodhi accessed records, and was pleased; most of ImhotaТs
shipping ran through its First and Third Gates, which were nodes on a minor
Platformer Caravan circuit. It meant that there would probably be relatively few
spacecraft around the Second Gate; which meant that if the Shivering Bastard
came blasting out of the Second Gate at near lightspeed, she would probably
survive.
And if we do hit something, Bodhi thought, at least weТll never know it.
From Imhota, assuming transit of Imhota System went wellЧassuming they got out
of Devnet System aliveЧBodhi would need to transit six Gates, five Tunnels and
one long tunnel, to reach November again.
It would take him forty-three days.

There were mirrors focused upon DevnetТs Sixth Gate, as upon all gates except
its Third. The Shivering Bastard sent missiles running ahead of her as she
decelerated. The mirrors were designed to collect DevnetТs light; they could not
be expected to withstand the onslaught of half a dozen anti-matter missiles.
They did not. When the shock waves of the explosions had passed they saw that
only two of the mirrors still stood. The Shivering Bastard decelerated to the
extent that she dared; she could transit the Gate at a much reduced velocity
now, and still survive the heat of the mirrors. They hit the Gate at .38CЧ
Чand what had taken four tries back at Eloise, took one at Devnet. They made
entry on the first pass and the spacelace tunnel opened up and swallowed them.

The tunnelТs walls pressed in upon the Shivering Bastard, surrounding her like
an organic thing. Had Bodhi cleared the observation bubble for viewing, he would
have seen a seething gray storm of lines and spheres enclosing his starship.
He kept the bubble opaque; he had seen it before, and it was vaguely disturbing.
The Shivering Bastard had dinner with him in the observation bubble; Bodhi dined
on wild rice, sautщed with mushrooms and almonds in a spiced wine sauce, and
drank two bottlesЧactual bottles made of glassЧof a black beer brewed long ago,
on a world that was today as much a cinder as Ugly. The Shivering Bastard
animated the body of a young human woman whom Bodhi found attractive; for the
evening she spoke in the first person, and answered to the name of Beyta
Arcadia, and pretended to be someone Bodhi had never met before. If he had known
the Bastard had taken the personality from an ancient novel, it would have
lessened his enjoyment in her company, and so she sensibly did not burden him
with the information.
She had no particular reaction to the half hour, subjective time, that they had
spent in the Devnet System. They had beaten the odds once again; some day, she
knew with a cold, inhuman certainty, the odds would beat them.
As for Bodhi himselfЧwell, she observed that he relaxed noticeably during his
second beer. He did not offer to discuss the near-certain war that would come of
the slaughter at Ugly, or speculate on the identity of those responsible; the
Bastard did not bring it up.
She did not hold BodhiТs reaction against him; he was human, with human
strengths and human weaknesses, including a fear of death. It did not seem to