"John Dalmas - The Three-Cornered War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dalmas John)

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John Dalmas - The Three-Cornered War


does the training for her, at the Lake Loreen Institute. And she runs the shop
here—assigns, coordinates, and oversees projects. And generally handles the most
important contacts herself, though she's gradually farming those out too."
He took another swallow of joma. "Interestingly though, some of the most critical
information we've gotten came through standard intelligence procedures. When the
Klestroni occupied Lonyer City, they wanted to learn what they could about the
Confederation. And you know what a backwater world Terfreya is. Anyway the
Klestroni rounded up a number of people there—bureaucrats, technicians,
teachers—and took them out to their flagship. Kept them separate from each other and
interrogated them, to learn what they could. They worked on them for all the weeks
they were there, then released them on the surface before leaving."
"Just a minute," Romlar said. "I'm not clear on the connection between the Klestroni
and the Empire."
"Klestron is simply one planet in the Empire. They're all sultanates—semiautonomous
theocracies. With major overpopulation problems. The Klestroni were looking for a
world to colonize and milk. After you guys ran them home, the Empire put together an
armada to come back and do the job right."
Kusu paused till he remembered what he'd been saying. "At any rate, the Klestroni
returned their prisoners to Terfreya. Their rules of warfare don't allow holding civilian
prisoners after hostilities are broken off. Which was fortunate for us as well as the
prisoners, because Lotta had Ostrak operators sent there, who questioned them at length
in an Ostrak revery. Debriefed them, so to speak, of the questions the Klestroni had
asked. The Klestroni were particularly interested in our fleet, including some land of
protective shield they assumed we had—something that protects ships from warbeams
and torpedoes.
"The apparency was, they had shields while we definitely didn't. So ship armor was one
of the first things Lotta snooped. It turned out not to be armor in the usual sense of the
word. The imperials call it 'force shields' in their language."
Artus interrupted. "She's learned their language?"
"Not really. She reads flows of mental concepts and images. But to some degree they're
tied up with language, which imprints on her language center as a kind of side effect."
Blessed "Tunis, Artus thought, I knew she was a genius, but... She'd never talked shop
with him, and he'd never asked. She dealt with shop ten to sixteen hours a day. And
that, it seemed to him, was enough.
"Anyway," Kusu continued, "my group worked on developing shield generators,
starting with the information she gave us. But even before we could make them, we

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John Dalmas - The Three-Cornered War


knew our older warships couldn't accommodate them. We knew that well before the
Klestroni got back home. So most of our fleet is new.
"The most remarkable thing Lotta did was provide us with technical information on the
imperial fleet. She had to fish it from people's minds while they thought about it or used
it. She had to find out who to hang around, psychically that is, and where and when. It's