"Larry Niven - Limits" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

require rules. I seem to be happiest with science fiction, "the literature of
the possible," where an army of scientists is busily defining my rules for me.


Other tales in the Draco Tavern series may be found in my Convergent Series,
published by Del Rey Books in 1979.

What have we here?

Long stories, short stories, very short stories, new and old.
Collaborations. Science fiction and fantasy and economic theory.

Have fun.


THE LION IN HIS ATIIC

Before the quake it had been called Castle Minterl; but few outside
Minterl remembered that. Small events drown in large ones. Atlantis itself, an
entire continent, had drowned in the tectonic event that sank this small
peninsula.

For seventy years the seat of government had been at Beesh, and that
place was called Castle Minter!. Outsiders called this drowned place Nihilil's
Castle, for its last lord, if they remembered at all. Three and a fraction
stories of what had been the south tower still stood above the waves. They
bore a third name now: Rordray's Attic.

The sea was choppy today. Durily squinted against bright sunlight
glinting off waves. Nothing of Nihilil's Castle showed beneath the froth.

The lovely golden-haired woman ceased peering over the side of the boat.
She lifted her eyes to watch the south tower come toward them. She murmured
into Karskon's ear, "And that's all that's left."

Thone was out of earshot, busy lowering the sails; but he might glance
back. The boy was not likely to have seen a lovelier woman in his life; and as
far as Thone was concerned, his passengers were seeing this place for the
first time. Karskon turned to look at Durily, and was relieved. She looked
interested, eager, even charmed.

But she sounded shaken. "It's all gone! Tapestries and banquet hail and
bedrooms and the big ballroom...the gardens...all down there with the fishes,
and not even merpeople to enjoy them...that little knob of rock must have been
Crown Hill...Oh, Karskon, I wish you could have seen it." She shuddered,
though her face still wore the mask of eager interest. "Maybe the riding-birds
survived. Nihilil kept them on the roof."

"You couldn't have been more than...ten? How can you remember so much?"