"E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 01 - The Winds of Gath" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

But that wasn't the real problem.




Chapter Two


THERE WAS no cycle of night and day on Gath. Always the
swollen ball of the sun glowered over the horizon, tinting the
leaden sea the color of blood. To the east there was darkness,
cold, mysterious. Between light and dark ran a strip of bearable
temperature but only here, on this waterlogged world, did it
touch both land and ocean. The accident of distribution had
helped to make the planet unique.

"A dying world," said a voice. It was soft, carefully modulated.
"Angered at the knowledge of its inevitable end. A little jealous, a
little pathetic, very much afraid and most certainly cruel."

"You are speaking of Gath?" Seena Thoth, ward of the
Matriarch of Kund, stayed looking through the window set into
the wall of the tent. There was no need for her to turn. She had
recognized the voice. Synthosilk rustled as the tall figure of Cyber
Dyne stepped to her side.

"What else, My Lady?"

"I thought it possible you spoke in analogy." She turned and
faced the cyber. He wore the scarlet robe of his class; beneath its
cowl his face was smooth, ageless, unmarked by emotion. "The
Matriarch is also old, perhaps a little afraid, most certainly
cruelтАФto those who oppose her will."

"To be a ruler is not an easy thing, My Lady."

"It can be worse to be a subject." She turned from the
window, her face pale beneath the black mound of lacquered
hair. "I saw one before we left Kund, a man impaled on a cone of
polished glass. They told me that his sensitivity to pain had been
heightened and that he would take a long time to die."

"He was a traitor, My Lady. The manner of his death was
chosen so as to serve as an example to others who might be
tempted to rebel."

"By your advice?" She tightened her lips at the inclination of
his head. "So. You oppose rebellion?"

"I do not oppose, I do not aid. I take no sides. I advise. I am of