"David Wingrove - Assimilation(1)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wingrove David)

set out from this world ten thousand years ago, long before the Exops had
come. For five hundred years they had sailed the stars until an Exop
patrol ship had captured them and taken them back to their home planet
near the galaxy's centre. There, for almost nine thousand years, they had
lived as slaves, working in the mines that stretched six and sometimes
eight miles into the planet's surface, extracting the ores that went to
make the aliens' spacecraft. Until, steeped in the lessons of survival,
they had turned the tables on their masters and eradicated them.
That had been six hundred years ago. Since then they had travelled across
the galaxy, moving slowly out from the Exops' home world, descending on
each of their colony worlds like a plague, stripping it bare before moving
on.
He flapped out the cloak then pulled it round him tightly, activating the
button at the neck. For a moment he seemed to glow, then, with a sudden
in-rush of air, he was gone.

Above the Earth the U-man fleet waited, a hundred thousand strong, their
distinctive long-winged shapes shielded from the defensive probes of the
planet below by technology a million years old. In the flagship Ka-Ta
knelt before his Commander, giving his report. Five minutes later it
began.
They had learned their lesson well; had assimilated all that the Exops
could teach them about war. As their ships descended, blackening the sky,
there was the sound of giant wings beating. When they rose again, an hour
later, there was nothing beneath them but a glowing ball of fused glass.
In the snug darkness of his warren, Ka-Ta lay beside the wall screen,
watching the dark shapes of their ships swarm across the bright circle of
the dying planet, then turned to face his wife, Li-Li. He reached out,
taking the egg of their son from her and hugging it close, sharing his
warmth with it and feeling its responsive movements beneath the hard
leathery shell.
He looked up into Li-Li's compound eyes and smiled. It was almost time.

й David Wingrove 1998
This story appears here for the first time.