"Alexander Kazantsev. The Destruction of Faena (ГИБЕЛЬ ФАЭНЫ, англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

"They're almost the same on Danjab."
"That's not enough! The barbarians must not be allowed to keep them.
Such is the decision of the Grand Circle."
"I bow before the will of the first proprietors. But the barbarian
automatic machines are under the Lair. Even a snake couldn't get through
there."
"A snake couldn't, but Kutsi Merc could. Besides, he has a reliable
agent there."
Kutsi Merc understood everything. Dobr Mar needed to show the
proprietors that he was carrying out their conditions, and at the same time
he could get rid of Kutsi Merc by sending him on an impossible assignment.
After his inevitable failure, Kutsi Merc could no longer prevent Dobr
Mar from being re-elected.
Not a line moved on Kutsi Merc's face.
"It is clear," he said respectfully. "Penetrate into the Lair and
destroy it and its automatic machines by using a disintegration charge." He
thought for a moment and added almost casually, "A reliable cover will be
needed."
"Fine," agreed the Ruler, walking round the horse-shoe table and
settling himself in the comfortable armchair. Many of his predecessors had
used that chair and he intended to keep his place in it for a long time to
come.
"The cover would be Ave Mar."
"Ave Mar? My son?" Dobr Mar rose abruptly to his feet.
He turned away to hide his wrath. This experienced spy was playing an
unworthy game with him, hoping that the father would not risk his son's
life.
Before Dobr Mar had thrice put up his candidature for Ruler and had
been defeated for refusing to become the "Ruler's friend", he had been the
owner of vast fertile fields. His son Ave had been born in those fields,
close to nature. He had been given his name Ave (Welcome) when he reached
maturity. As a little boy, he had run around with half-naked children of
roundheads working in his father's fields.
He had not only gone fishing with them to help them fill their bellies
at least once in a while, he had climbed trees for the nutrient buds, but,
like all generations of children, he had played at war.
Dobr Mar was proud of his son, although the boy had inherited his curly
hair from his roundhead grandmother and his girlish curved eyelashes and his
clear gaze from his mother. The father didn't particularly like his son
looking at the world too ecstatically, naively believing in justice and the
ancient laws of honour. Life had punished him many times for this
old-fashionedness. But the father was flattered that his son worshipped him
for his efficiency and love of peace. However, the son sometimes behaved
rashly. On leaving his teacher Um Sat, "not wishing to serve the science of
death", he openly spoke up against the fact that the decisive role on both
continents was being played by the proprietors of the fields and big
workshops who had profited from the over-populated lands and the labour of
those working for the proprietors. Fortunately for him, as his father knew
from the secret reports, he never managed to attach himself to the "current
under the ice" of young people threatening to break through even here, on