"Walter Jon Williams - Dread Empire's Fall 03 - Conventions of War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter John)

him give up his communications protocols; and he was now too weak to last long under the knives.
When he passed out, the loop of executionerтАЩs wire was passed around his neck and he died.

HongтАЩs execution, as well as all the others, were broadcast live on the channel reserved for
punishments, one long summer afternoon of blood and torment, entertainment suitable only for sadists
and clinicians.Which am I? Sula wondered. Because she needed to hear the announcer read the names of
the condemned, she couldnтАЩt even turn off the sound to insulate herself against the moans, screams, and
the eerie discordant chimes of dying Daimong. Though there were moments when she had to turn away,
Sula steeled herself to watch as much as she could, and noted the names of every one who died.

So far as she could tell, the entire secret government died that afternoon, from Military Governor Pahn-
ko all the way down to his servants. When Sula had first heard of the secret governmentтАЩs existence,
sheтАЩd pictured an underground bunker packed with communications gear or a lonely cave in the
mountains reached only by a hidden path; but it appeared that Pahn-ko had been captured in a country
house not far from Zanshaa City.

Thatwas the secret hideaway? Sula thought with disbelieving scorn. Pahn-ko might as well have painted
SECRET GOVERNMENT on the roof in large white letters.

The governmentтАЩs military force died with its leadership. Junior Fleet Commander Lord Eshruq, the
head of the action groups that had volunteered to stay behind under occupation, took a long time to die.
Perhaps the knobby-limbed gray Daimong body was unnaturally hardy, or perhaps the torturers took
special care, since one of EshruqтАЩs action groups had killed some Naxids on the day they rode in triumph
into the captured city.

But most of the condemned went quickly. There were nearly two hundred loyalists to execute, and a
limited number of torturers. Most of the torments were perfunctory, followed by the garotte, a death
merciful compared to what the state could inflict when it had more time and leisure.

From the bedroom came the amped sounds of saccharine music, mixed with murmurs and moans. One
of SulaтАЩs two teammates, Engineer First Class Shawna Spence, lay wounded on the bed watching a
romantic melodrama, with the sound turned up so she wouldnтАЩt hear her comrades dying.

Sula didnтАЩt blame her.

The apartment was close and hot and smelled of dust and gun oil, disinfectant and sadness. Sula felt the
walls pressing in, the dead weight of dead air. She couldnтАЩt stand it any longer and opened a window.
Fresh air flooded in, and the scent of onions frying on a stone griddle just below her window, and the

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 Williams, Walter Jon - [DEF 03] - Conventions of War

sounds of the street, the music and laughter and shouts of the close-packed neighborhood called
Riverside.

Sula took a few welcome breaths as she scanned the slow-moving crowds below. Her nerves hummed
as she saw a pair of uniforms, the gray jackets and white peaked caps of the Urban Patrol. Her lip curled,
an old instinct. Her upbringing, on faraway Spannan, had not been such as to instill in her the greatest
respect for law enforcement.