"Paul Park - Starbridge 02 - Sugar Rain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Park Paul)

SUGARR AIN
Copyright ┬й 1989 by Paul Park. All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1-930815-45-X

Published by ElectricStory.com, Inc.

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This novel is a work of fiction. All characters, events, organizations, and locales are either the product of
the authorтАЩs imagination or used fictitiously to convey a sense of realism.

Cover art by and copyright ┬й 2000 Cory and Catska Ench.

eBook conversion by Ron Drummond.

eBook edition ofSugar Rain copyright ┬й 2000 by ElectricStory.com.

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Sugar Rain
The Starbridge Chronicles: Book II
By Paul Park



ElectricStory.com, Inc.




For Mary and Nathaniel Lawrence

Part One:
Charity Starbridge

T here is a fresco in the princeтАЩs library where it is all set out: the Sun painted on the black background
of deep space, while around it spins the wheel of EarthтАЩs majestic orbit. And the rim of the wheel is made
of numbers, tiny calculations of painted gold, for in those days the length of the year was a matter of
dogma. Knowing it to be a lie, the bishopтАЩs astronomers had put the figure down as eighty thousand days
precisely. They were in love with a vision of celestial harmony: four seasons of twenty thousand days,
twenty phases of a thousand days each, ten months of a hundred days, ten weeks of ten, twenty hours of
a hundred minutes each. The artist has painted a portrait of the bishop, enthroned within the circle of the
Earth. In her hand she holds a silver sword. It is composed of numbers, the magical equation 1 X 10 X
10 X 10 X 20 X 4 = 1. Under her feet writhe demons and heretics, arbitrary and conflicting figures
issuing from their mouths.
Closer in around the Sun and farther out in space, the nine planets of hell pursue their separate
waysтАФtight, fiery circles and long, cold ellipses. Each is decorated with scenes of souls in torment. Men
freeze in icy prisons or burn like torches; they burst apart or weigh a thousand pounds, depending on the
differing effects of temperature and atmosphere. And beneath each planet the artist has depicted the
kinds of criminals who inhabit it. Under Baqui Minor, for example, he has painted a seascape, a storm