"Roger Taylor - Prisoner Of History" - читать интересную книгу автора (Taylor Roger)

ROBERT C. TAYLOR

A PRISONER OF HISTORY

The Emperor Chankrondor IV, when released from imprisonment, had bowed to his
jailer, thanked him most politely for the hospitality displayed, and then, to
show his own nobility and forgiveness, had the fellow elevated to the rank of
Prison Master in the Royal Court. Trobar p'Arvellhion knew that he had no such
royal perquisites to bestow upon his own jailers, but he had made up his mind
that he would try to be at least as polite as the Emperor had been.

He was finding that hard to do. The outprocessing interview was dragging on, and
the clerk who was conducting it seemed to have no intention of finishing it
before the day was over. Outside the window of the cubicle, Trobar could see the
shadows shift as the Star rose higher into the sky and then began its slow
descent. The ships that rested on the landing field just beyond the prison
fences now reflected the full glare of day off their silvery sides. The
mountains on the other side of the red plain had been filled with deep shadows
when the interview started. Now the shadows were filled with light, and the
mountains themselves stretched out flat against the pale sky. The clerk went
slowly over the papers while the present Emperor looked down upon him from the
wall. He filled in blanks, checked boxes, occasionally asked a question. His pen
scratched against the paper. Most of the time the only sound in the room was the
quiet breathing of the two men, the shy hiss of the ventilation, and the
scratching of the pen.

"We need to be thorough," the clerk had said at the start of the interview. "The
Emperor Himself sometimes reviews these forms. We want to make sure that
everything is correct."

He was very thorough, digging into all the facts of Trobar's life, his arrest,
and his imprisonment. The detail of his investigation, as well as his patience,
was astounding.

During the interview, Trobar learned two new things about himself, but after
that he saw, with growing resignation, that the rumors were true and there was
no hope that he would ever see Home again.

The first new thing he learned was that he had been convicted of belonging to a
group that advocated the overthrow of the Emperor.

Trobar smiled feebly when he heard that. "It was just a lecture," he said. "I
only knew one other person there, Chenkor p'Torlik. He invited me. I was an
Historian, at the Imperial University in the Capitol. I had just received
tenure. I specialized in the reign of Chankrondor IV. It was a lecture on the
Republic, which preceded the reign of Chankrondor I. I didn't even hear the end.
The police broke it up."
He sighed. It seemed so long ago now.

The clerk smiled at him again. "Surely, you should have appealed your