"SM Stirling - & David Drake - General 08 - The Tyrant" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stirling S. M)

By now, he had left Helga completely behind. She was no longer fumbling in the mist; her eyes were as blank as a blind woman's.

"As they should be," stated Demansk, with all the satisfaction of a pig farmer ruling his domain. He had a hard time to keep from giggling himself. But, a kindly father as well as a stern patriarch, he took pity on her.

"Haven't you figured it out yet, silly girl? I need to maneuver with Adrian Gellert, not against him. But to do that I need to send him an envoy. Someone from the Confederacy of Vanbert he can trust."

Helga's mouth formed a perfect "O."

Her father clucked his tongue. "Odd, really. She's normally rather bright."

O.

"Not as bright as her father, of course."

O.

"Which is as it shouldЧ"

He got no further. Helga had the baby down on the bench and was clutching her father. Not even clutching him so much as jiggling him up and down, as if he were an infant himself. It was a wonderful moment for him, one of the best in his life.

Not perfect, true. There was still the dull, aching sadness of knowing that it would all be swept away, soon enough, by the coming time of blood and iron, fire and fury.

а

Chapter 3

It was a strange place. Even after all this time, and the familiarity of the many hours Adrian Gellert had spent here, the place still seemedа.а.а.аforeign.

I never got used to it either, really, came one of the two "spirits" which had created that strangeness. Even after years had passed. And I only had to share my brain with one other, not two.а

Adrian shook his head slightly. Then, through the slight haze of the "trance"Чas if he were seeing it on another's face rather than feeling it on his ownЧsensed his lips curling into a little smile. It's not sharing my "brain" that's the problem, Raj. I wasn't using a lot of it anyway. It's that I'm always a little confused whose soul is working at the moment. а

i do not have a soul.Center's statement, as always, came so firm and certain that it reminded Adrian of a level plain. A sheet of granite, covered with only the thinnest soil. No hills, no gulliesЧno mountains, certainly, nor valleysЧgave that "voice" any relief at all. Sometimes it was tiring; and it was always a bit annoying.

He sensed Raj Whitehall chuckling. "Sensed" it, only, because in the end Raj was as disembodied as Center himself. But Whitehall, at least, had once been a human being.

He annoyed me a little, too, back in the days long ago when I was alive and he was my adviser. Damn know-it-all. And what's worse is that you can't really trust that knowledgeЧas he's the first to point out.аа

of course.аа

Center's "voice" had no emotional flavor or penumbra. It was always a bit of a shock, that. There was never the little moment of preparation that a human gave another when he was about to speakЧa smile, perhaps; or a scowl, or a tilt of the eyebrow. Justа.а.а.а that flat, level voice. Blowing in as suddenly as a wind off the plain slams open an unlatched door, startling the occupant of the house within.

stochastic analysis deals with probabilities, not certainties. certainties do not exist, outside the fantasies of philosophers. neither do souls, as an objective reality subject to stochastic analysis. you humans have souls simply as referent points to yourselves.аа

Adrian wondered, for a moment, what his former teachers at the Grove would have said to that. Many of them, he suspected, would have agreed. With the proposition concerning certainty, at least, if not the rest. Privately, of course. In public, no professional philosopher would admit to any doubts on any subject in creation.

The thought was whimsical, not harsh. Whatever their faults, those teachers had shaped his mind. And, on balance, shaped it well. So, at least, he thought.

And so do we, lad, said Raj softly. Or we wouldn't have selected you for your mission in the first place.а а