"Chalker, Jack L - Rings 3 - Warriors Of The Storm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

Still, absolutely none of the Forces would think of disobeying a Val with the
proper codes and clearances, nor any command from Master System. Such a thing
would be tantamount to a Fall from Grace. Not that he or anyone considered the
machines, even Master System, to be gods; they were just machines, created by
ancient human beings.
Humanity's ancestors, back on Earth, had reached a point in their development
where they could destroy all life, and the great minds who helped maintain their
destructive system went to work building the greatest defense computer in human
history, a self-aware and self-evaluative creation. With the knowledge that no
one else was aware of their actions, they dared to program their creation to
work out ways, any ways, by which the destruction of humanity could be
prevented -- and then to insure that humanity could never destroy itself again. And
when that time came, and the computer seized control of all the Earth's weapons
systems and neutralized them, it took command. To save themselves, the political
and military leaders obeyed it and carried out its orders. To fail to do so
meant political death, at the very least, and replacement by more tractable
leaders.
Inside the vast data bases of what was known only as Master System were vast
knowledge and incredible new discoveries. Humanity already had some
interplanetary capability; to that Master System added the
impossible -- interstellar travel by "punching" a hole through space-time, pushing
a ship across countless light-years under natural laws far different from those
in our universe, then "punching" back through again. The computer flew the
ships; the computer alone knew the charts and objectives.
In order to fulfill its primary program and still retain absolute control,
Master System constructed great ships to take billions of humans to the stars,
to worlds that had been partially or fully terraformed. The heart of the
interstellar ships was a device known as a transmuter, the result of a failed
theoretical attempt to design a matter transmitter. Tremendous energy was
required to punch through space-time, and using huge ramjets, the transmuter
could convert thousands of tons of rock from the solar systems they visited to
energy and store it in adequate quantity. The trans-muter however, could not use
this fuel itself. The only fuel a transmuter could use was a complex compound
based upon an ore that formed only under certain geophysical conditions in
certain solar systems -- the ore murylium.
Master System charted the universe and discovered sufficient quantities of
murylium for its needs. It built automated mines and factories out in space,
supplied by a network of automated interstellar freighters. With bigger and more
efficient transmuters Master System partially terraformed all the worlds it
needed, then matched a large group of Earth-humans with each world, and
transmuted them to those forms that could survive there. It established four
hundred and fifty-one "colony" worlds and in the moving process created four
hundred and fifty-one new forms of humanity. Those millions left on Earth were
relegated to museumlike reservations and held at a cultural and technological
level approximating the year 1700. Certain individuals from each culture -- the
best, the brightest, the most ambitious and innovative -- were given access to
Master System's technology. Working from hidden communities called Centers, they
were expected to maintain the cultural level of the masses as it was, ignorant
of the existence of a Center, or Master System. Only a few who lived in the old
ways knew the secret; these served as field agents for the Centers'