"Anderson,.Kevin.J.-.Seven.Suns.3.-.2004.-.Horizon.Storms" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Kevin J)

On Earth, King Peter and Basil Wenceslas were surprised when a Klikiss robot, JORAX, unexpectedly volunteered to let himself be dismantled for science. Jorax claimed that the Klikiss robots wanted to assist humans in the hydrogue war, and that the robotic technology could be used to create highly proficient Soldier compies. Peter was suspicious of the offer, but Basil saw too many possible benefits to turn it down. The robot was dissected, and many of the Klikiss robot programming modules were immediately copied, adapted, and put into production.

While sleeping with Sarein, Basil complained that the aloof green priests would be extremely valuable as communication tools in the war, but they refused to help. Sarein suggested a plan to strengthen ties between Theroc and the Hansa: Her sister Estarra should marry King Peter. When they attended Reynald's coronation ceremony on the forested world, Basil and Sarein offered this plan to the new leader of Theroc, and he accepted. When Estarra learned the news, she was at first surprised and alarmed-she had never met Peter-but her friend, the eccentric green priest ROSSIA, encouraged her to give the alliance a chance. Estarra communicated with her brother Beneto, serving as green priest on Corvus Landing, and he wished her well. Sarein then spoke to the gathered green priests and convinced nineteen of them, including her uncle YARROD, to volunteer to help the EDF.

After his little sister's engagement to the King, Reynald sent a marriage proposal to Cesca Peroni. Though she was in love with Jess and continued to meet him for secret assignations, they had never formalized their plans. Now, for the good of her people, she considered the proposed alliance with the Therons. Jess urged Cesca to accept the offer, regardless of her feelings for him. To make the choice easier for her, he signed up for a long and lonely voyage to collect ekti in one of Del Kellum's nebula skimmers; he launched from the Osquivel shipyards and flew off alone into space, leaving Cesca to do what she must.

On Ildira, the Mage-Imperator revealed to Prime Designate Jora'h that he was dying and that Jora'h would soon have to take the throne. Adar Kori'nh escorted Jora'h to the pleasure planet of Hyrillka to retrieve his eldest noble-born son, THOR'H, who was destined to replace him as the next Prime Designate. Thor'h resented his change of status from his soft life and pouted when his father told him he must prepare for his new duties. The Adar's warliners put on a spectacular performance for hedonistic DESIGNATE RUSA'H.

Before they could depart, a group of hydrogue warglobes swept in to destroy Hyrillka. Designate Rusa'h was seriously injured as the citadel palace collapsed around him. Although Adar Kori'nh and his warliners were resoundingly trounced, he managed to escape with Jora'h, Thor'h, and the unconscious Rusa'h.

When they returned to Ildira, the dying Mage-Imperator instructed Kori'nh to abandon weaker colonies in the Ildiran Empire to consolidate their strength. Kori'nh saw this as a devastating blow: For the first time in millennia, the Empire was shrinking-and under his watch! While Rusa'h remained in a coma, the Mage-Imperator revealed to Jora'h details of an ancient hidden war, in which the hydrogues had been allied with fiery beings known as faeros against watery entities called wentals and a forest mind called the verdani. Jora'h realized that the sentient worldtrees on Theroc must be the verdani, and he began to suspect that his beloved Nira might not have died in the convenient way his father described.

In the Ildiran breeding barracks on Dobro, Nira told the prisoners stories about what life was like for free humanity. Unfortunately, they had been experimental subjects for so many generations that they could not imagine freedom. Designate Udru'h trained Nira's daughter Osira'h to enhance her mental powers. Udru'h brainwashed the little girl to believe that she was the savior of the Ildiran race in the struggle against the hydrogues. When Nira and other prisoners were put to work fighting a brush fire in the hills, Nira tried to escape, rushing to scrub trees and attempting to use her green priest abilities to call for help. But the trees were silent, and she was captured, beaten, and dragged back to the camps.

General Lanyan went on a survey cruise with Tasia Tamblyn's old nemesis, Patrick Fitzpatrick III. They encountered a lone Roamer cargo ship; after confiscating its load of ekti, Fitzpatrick quietly destroyed the ship and its captain, careful to leave no witnesses. Later, the EDF battle group responded to a distress call from a planet under attack by hydrogue warglobes. Aided by an innovative idea from Tasia, they rescued many of the colonists, but they could not fight the hydrogues. Tasia's lover Robb Brindle chased after the departing enemy, tracking them to the ringed gas planet Osquivel, the site of Del Kellum's secret Roamer shipyards. When Robb reported his find of the debris to the EDF commanders, General Lanyan decided to make an all-out attack on Osquivel. Knowing that the hidden Roamer facility would surely be found, Tasia sent her loyal compy EA off to warn Speaker Peroni. Meeting with the EDF commanders, Robb proposed a risky scheme to go down in an encounter vessel in a last attempt to communicate with the hydrogues before the EDF attacked; it was almost certainly a suicide mission.

When EA delivered her warning, the Roamers at Osquivel scrambled to hide their shipyard before the EDF could arrive. By the time Tasia and her fleet came to the ringed planet, the Roamers had completed their work. Robb descended in his diving bell, offering a last chance for negotiation, but his transmissions cut off abruptly. When hydrogue warglobes opened fire, Robb was presumed dead, and General Lanyan ordered a full-scale attack, using the new Soldier compies. The battle was a massacre of human ships. Zhett Kellum and her father watched the disaster from their hiding places in the planet's rings. Ship after ship was destroyed, and the scattered EDF finally declared a retreat, leaving fallen comrades behind. Tasia barely managed to drag her cruiser away; Patrick Fitzpatrick's ship was destroyed. Utterly defeated, the remnants of the fleet limped home. . . .

Cesca traveled with celebratory Roamer ships to formally accept Reynald's offer of marriage. Jess was far away, alone, on his nebula skimmer, collecting hydrogen, other gases, and water molecules. Gradually sensing that he was no longer alone, Jess realized that the water was somehow alive, and he began to communicate with it. He had gathered one of the supernatural beings, a wental, which told him about the ancient war against the hydrogues. Jess now had a new mission: If he dispersed this wental to other water planets and helped it grow strong again, humanity could have a powerful ally against the hydrogues. He took the wental to an empty ocean world, where the entity miraculously spread; then Jess departed to find another candidate planet.

On Rheindic Co, searching for information about Margaret Colicos, the spy Davlin Lotze accidentally discovered how to activate the Klikiss transportals and was whisked to another planet, while Rlinda Kett could only watch helplessly. Through experimentation, Davlin activated the transportation system again and spent days hopping from planet to planet, until he finally found his way back to Rlinda, who had nearly given up on him. Though exhausted and near starvation, Davlin was also exhilarated-he had discovered a new means of interplanetary travel that did not require the embargoed stardrive fuel ekti!

Still without word of his missing parents, Anton Colicos traveled to meet with the historian Vao'sh at the Prism Palace, where he learned about Ildiran tales and culture. After spending time on the main world, he and Vao'sh were assigned to the resort planet of Maratha, which was in constant sunlight for half the year and full darkness the other half. Klikiss robots were constructing a second city on the opposite side of the world, but the buildings were not finished. Eager to show the dark-fearing Ildirans the thrill of a "haunted house," Anton convinced a group to visit the dark-side construction site, where the black robots diligently worked. Later, as the day season ended, all tourists left Maratha, and only a small skeleton crew remained behind during the long night. Anton and Vao'sh also stayed, waiting as the darkness fell. . . .

At the Roamer base on the near-molten world of Isperos, Kotto Okiah's systems began to break down. Though he struggled to hold the base together, too many components failed, and he knew they were doomed. Kotto sent an urgent call to the Roamers, who responded with rescue ships. But the solar flares increased and the hellish environment was so harsh that the ships began to overload as they tried to take the refugees to safety. Before the rescuers fell to the punishing storm, however, fiery ellipsoidal ships emerged from the sun itself. At first the panicked Roamers feared they were under attack, but the fireballs-the faeros-actually protected them until they could get away. . . .

Back at the space battlefield at Osquivel, Roamers inspected the EDF wrecks to see what they could salvage. Zhett found a drifting lifetube that contained a weak Patrick Fitzpatrick. Although she nursed him to health, she could never let him return to his former life, because he knew too many Roamer secrets.

Destined to be the next Queen, Estarra arrived on Earth. When she finally met Peter, she felt a connection with him, but Basil kept them carefully apart. As the wedding preparations proceeded swiftly after the EDF defeat at Osquivel, she had little chance to get to know the man who would become her husband, but her sister Sarein arranged for them to have time together. During the spectacular wedding, Peter pointedly snubbed the Chairman, making Basil very angry. On their wedding night, the King and Queen felt they could be much stronger together, and perhaps even learn to fall in love with each other. . . .

Prime Designate Jora'h sent resentful Thor'h back to Hyrillka to supervise the reconstruction activities after the hydrogue attack. Jora'h followed his suspicions, eventually discovering that Nira was indeed alive and held hostage on Dobro-and that her daughter by him, Osira'h, was being trained as a new Ildiran weapon. Feeling betrayed, Jora'h confronted his father and the Dobro Designate, neither of whom denied the accusations, insisting only that Jora'h must accept the truth for the good of the Empire. For days, Jora'h tried to commandeer a ship to Dobro so that he could see Nira again. When the ailing Mage-Imperator realized that the Prime Designate would never understand, he took his only course of action: A Mage-Imperator knows everything in the Ildiran racial mind through his connection with the telepathic force ofthism. Jora'h would know his place once he became the next godlike leader. Therefore the Mage-Imperator poisoned himself, leaving his son no choice but to do his duty.

The death of the Mage-Imperator severed the telepathic bond holding the Ildiran race together, sending a mental shockwave across the galaxy. Jora'h collapsed, then dragged himself to his father's deathbed. All around the Empire, Ildiran men cut off their hair and nearly went insane.

On patrol with the Solar Navy, Adar Kori'nh had felt helpless and resentful, his hands tied by clear orders that he must never engage the hydrogues. After the shocking death of the Mage-Imperator, though, he realized that, for once, he could act entirely on his own, without the leader observing his every action. He called forty-nine of his battleships and went to Qronha 3, the site of the first major Ildiran defeat by the hydrogues. Kori'nh remembered how one of his officers had destroyed an enemy warglobe by crashing his ship headlong into it. Now, when the hydrogues rose up to meet them, Kori'nh gave his orders-and all forty-nine of his battleships slammed into enemy vessels, reaping a great but costly victory, and earning himself a place forever in theSaga of Seven Suns.

Prowling hydrogues encountered Jess Tamblyn on his journey to disperse the wentals, ancient enemies of the deep-core aliens. The water entities told Jess that he had to survive. On their rash instructions, he drank a vial of the energized wentals just as the hydrogues destroyed his ship over a cloudy and uncharted planet. Jess later woke up, floating in an alien sea-charged with superhuman powers, but marooned and completely cut off from everything he knew, including his beloved Cesca. . . .

The hydrogues next attacked Corvus Landing, where Estarra's brother Beneto made his home. The aliens sent a small ship to Beneto's worldtree grove, demanding to know the location of the main worldforest. The trees came alive and destroyed the emissary, but the larger warglobes obliterated the colony and all the worldtrees. Beneto remained connected through the forest, reporting what was happening up until the last minute. . . .

Friction continued between King Peter and the Chairman, especially after Basil made Peter issue an abortion decree to reduce the populations of struggling colonies. The King wanted to think and rule for himself-which did not sit well with Basil, especially since Peter did not agree with all of Basil's actions and decisions. The Hansa even announced the existence of "Prince Daniel," a replacement-in-training for Peter, should he continue to be intractable. Peter christened and dispatched a survey group of EDF battleships, crewed primarily by Soldier compies, with only a few token humans aboard; the ships went to observe a hydrogue planet . . . and vanished without a trace.

While studying the Soldier compies, the Teacher compy OX discovered enough troubling details to make the King's suspicions stronger. Peter issued a royal order to shut down the compy factories until the copied Klikiss technology was better understood. Basil angrily countermanded the order, since the Hansa desperately needed Soldier compies for the war. This was the last straw for him; the Chairman put into motion an assassination plot that would remove King Peter and Queen Estarra, while implicating the annoyingly independent Roamers in the crime. With the help of OX and Estarra, Peter foiled the plot, but now the King and the Chairman knew they had to watch each other every moment.

Finally learning the location of the worldforest, a massive fleet of hydrogue warglobes arrived and immediately began to destroy Theroc. Led by Reynald, the Therons tried to fight back against the hydrogues. Mother Alexa and Father Idriss evacuated the people to the lower levels, but even that was no use. The towering trees retaliated, crushing some of the enemy warglobes, but they quickly faltered. Unexpectedly, faero fireballs arrived, joining the forest in its fight against the hydrogues. The titanic battle obliterated many hydrogues and faeros, and the collateral destruction lit great portions of the worldforest on fire. Reynald's youngest sister CELLI was caught high in a burning tree, only to be rescued by a young green priest. Reynald himself died in the treetops when a dueling fireball and warglobe crashed into the canopy. Eventually, the faeros drove off the hydrogues. The enemies departed, leaving the worldforest in burning ruins.

When Tasia's compy EA returned from secretly warning the Roamers about the Osquivel offensive, Basil intercepted the compy and tried to interrogate her. But EA's automated systems wiped her memory core, shutting her down. Suspicious, Basil ordered scientists to study EA; as far as Tasia knew, her compy had never arrived back from her mission. Meanwhile, Tasia went to inspect the site of the original Klikiss Torch test, where she was surprised to discover the hydrogues and faeros engaged in a giant struggle in the burning star itself. Eventually the hydrogues extinguished the sun, killing the faeros. . . .

Receiving good news at last, Basil listened as Davlin and Rlinda described the new Klikiss transportal system they had discovered on Rheindic Co. The dimensional gateways required no rare ekti. Basil seized the opportunity and announced a new colonization scheme to send people to abandoned Klikiss worlds through the transportals-essentially establishing a new network that would bypass the fuel shortages.