"Steve White - Emperor of Dawn" - читать интересную книгу автора (White Steve)

world. That ancestry doubtless hadn't hurt his Fleet career. But he certainly didn't fit the lean, hard-faced
stereotype of the military aristocracy the Sword Clans had bred by intermarriage with the old Imperial
elite. His expensively tailored uniform couldn't conceal his pudginess, and self-indulgence had left its
marks on his face. Corin had heard rumors about the ways he'd augmented his personal fortune during
his tenure as Sector Admiral of Iota Pegasi.

"Yes," the admiral was continuing, "this sector may seem out-of-the-way. But don't be deceived." He
manipulated controls, and a multicolored display floated in midair between two holo plates set into the
floor and the ceiling. Corin instantly recognized the very rough spheroid as a representation of the
Empire, its sectors in bright translucent colors. As per convention, it was oriented in terms of Old Earth's
ecliptic plane, just as regions were still described by the names of the mythological persons and beasts
that some ancient GreekтАФdoubtless after ingesting too muchretsina тАФhad thought to see among the
stars.

Tanzler-Yataghan touched more controls, and two vaguely outlined expanses of sinister slate-gray
appeared outside the bounds of the gaudy spheroid, like obscene growths. The smaller and less vague of
them clung to the outer edge of the turquoise Xi Ursae Majoris Sector, beyond the bright beacon of
Denebola, on the right of the display as viewed from where Corin sat and about a fourth of the way
"north" from its equator. The larger and less sharply delineated one seemed to slouch against the crimson
and yellow expanses of the Beta Cassiopeiae and Theta Persei Sectors, about forty percent of the way
around the spheroid and considerably higher. Still further around to the left, but at the same "latitude" as
the smaller gray blotch from which it was diametrically opposite, a blinking light indicated the position of
Iota Pegasi, in the azure of the sector that bore its name.

"As you can see," the admiral intoned, pointing to a purple shape that lay between the azure and the
crimson, "only the 85 Pegasi Sector separates us from the sectors directly threatened by the Tarakans."
 Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html




He glowered at the ill-defined gray smudge polluting his side of the display. "Naturally, that represents
only the Inner Domain. We don't know enough about the Outer Domain's extent to accurately depict it.
Anyway, it's the Inner Domain that's the immediate threat."

Corin wondered what the Tarakans themselves called the two Domains, each ruled by its own Araharl,
into which they'd schismed shortly after the great Zhangula had unified them and made them masters of an
unprecedentedly large expanse of extra-Imperial space. Almost certainly not the Empire-centered terms
"Inner" and "Outer." But, he reflected, that had always been the problem. To its inhabitants, the Empire
was by definition the sole source of civilization and political legitimacy in the human universe, the lawful
trustee of Old Earth's legacy. The humans who occupied an unknown percentage of the galaxy outside its
frontiers were simply "Beyonders"тАФdwellers in outer darkness, sometimes dangerous, sometimes to be
employed as mercenaries, but never to be taken seriously. Curiously enough, this attitude had survived
the Empire's reunification by descendants of the Sword ClansтАФtechnically Beyonders
themselvesтАФbecause by then those descendants had become more Imperial than the Imperials. For the
really curious thing was that the Beyonders themselves mostly accepted the Empire's self-estimate, and
sought to buy into the assumption of superiority it entailed.

But the attitude also carried a penalty: chronically wretched intelligence concerning the Beyonders. In
normal times, this could be lived with. The innumerable Beyonder states, few of which comprised more