"Ringo, John - Council Wars 1 - There Will Be Dragons" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ringo John)

At that moment there was a faint but increasing chiming.
"Yes? Genie? I told you I didn't want calls here," she said in exasperation.
"Except from a limited list of individuals," the disembodied male head of her
genie popped into midair and grimaced. "It is Sir Edmund. He says it is an
urgent message."
"Put him through," Daneh sighed, all thoughts of jigsaw puzzles blown away as if
from the storm. "What is it, now, Edmund?"
The image of her former gene-mate had changed little in the last two years; he
was just as broad and heavily muscled and his face was still barely creased with
lines. Maybe there were a few more gray threads in his beard, but not many. His
demeanor, however, wasЕ odd.
"Daneh, thanks for letting me talk to you," he said. "I'd like you to consider
donating your excess energy credits to the Wolf 359 Terraforming Project. Wolf
Four requires a major refit including the removal of trillions of tons of
crustal material and the Wolf 359 Terraforming Project needs your help."
"WHAT?!" she shouted. "I come here to get away, Edmund! I've got a very sick boy
I'm trying to heal and I do not need you soliciting me for terraforming funds!
And just what do you care about terraforming? It's going to take a half a
million years to form a viable planet! You're the one who always pointed that
out to me."
"Terraforming is essential to the future, not just of the human race but of life
itself. In a few million years, this planet will be consumed by our own sun. If
we do not have new planets to move to, planets that have been prepared for
terrestrial life, all life on Earth, the only planet with significant life yet
found in the galaxy, will be destroyed."
"Hold on," she said. "What are you? You're not Edmund Talbot, are you?"
"I am a legally authorized message from the Wolf 359 Terraforming Project, a
project that needs your help."
"Genie! Spam!" she shouted as the image disappeared. "Oh! Oooooo! Genie, contact
Edmund, use an avatar, tell him his image has been hacked. And tell my sister,
too."
"Yes, ma'am," the personal program replied. "I asked if it was an avatar of
Edmund Talbot and it said it was."
"But it had to tell me the truth," she said. "I've asked Sheida when they are
going to fix that, but she keeps telling me there aren't enough votes in the
Council."
"Yes, ma'am," the genie replied. "Both will be informed."
"Okay," Daneh sighed. "Never mind; I can't think anymore today anyway. Home,
genie."
* * *
Edmund Talbot looked up from the inlay he was applying with painstaking care as
his butler projection made the sound of a throat clearing.
"Master Edmund, there is an avatar at the door to see you."
The projection was dressed in thirteenth-century court dress of the Frankish
kingdoms, its surcoat of wool and silk marked with a blazon of red and silver,
argent upon gules, a human head, erased. With its fully human appearance and
placed beside the antique tools, armor and weaponry arraying the room, the
projection did not look outlandish in the least. It looked like a standard
medieval flunky, not a cloud of nannites dressed in silk, wool and linen.
There was, in fact, no sign of advanced technology anywhere in the cluttered