"S. M. Stirling - The Sky People" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stirling S. M)

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The Sky People by S. M.
Stirling
TO JANET, FOREVER

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Melinda Snodgrass, Daniel Abraham, Sally Gwylan, Emily Mah,
Yvonne Coats, Terry England, George R. R. Martin, Walter Jon Williams,
Yvonne Coats, and Ian Tregellis of Critical Mass for help and advice.

To Steve Brady for more help, on entomology this time.

Thanks to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Leigh Brackett, Otis Adelbert Kline,
Leinster, Heinlein, and all the other great pulpsters for gracing my
childhood with John Carter, Northwest Smith, "Wrong Way" Carson of
Venus, and all the heroes gifted with a better solar system than the one we
turned out to inhabit. From the jungles of Venus and the Grand Canal of
Marsopolis, I salute you!

All mistakes, infelicities, and errors are of course my own.


PROLOGUE
Venus
June 14,1962

The sun rose in the west.

Deera of the Cloud Mountain People ran as she had through the short
hours of darkness, without hope and without much fear. The mild, warm
air of the midlands made the sweat on her face and flanks feel almost cool
as it dried, and the tall grass beat against her thighs as her long legs
scissored endlessly. The morning sun was still low, casting the seven
runners' shadows before them and turning the clouds to the color of raw
gold. They had trotted through the short, bright summer night and would
run on into the long span of daylight, until the great yellow globe of Kru
sank in the eastтАж if they lived that long, which was unlikely.

She would run until she could run no more. Then the Wergu would
catch them, and they would fight, and they would die. If they were
fortunate, they would die quickly; her warriors had orders to make sure of
that for her. There had been some slight chance that they would reach the
foothills before the beastmen caught up with them, being longer-limbed,