"David Drake - General 04 - The Steel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

The higher they rise, the harder they fall, Thom thought.
true. There was a slight overtone of surprise in Center's dispassionate machine-voice.
More images. War flickering between the stars, mutiny, secession. Bellevue's Net flaring into
plasma. The remnants of Federation units turning feral when they were cut off here, bringing civilization
down in a welter of thermonuclear fire. Swift decay into barbarism for most areas, a pathetic remnant of
ancient knowledge
preserved in the Civil Government and the Colony, degenerating into superstition. Now a
thousand years and more had passed, and a tentative rebirth stirred.
cycles within cycles, Center said. the overall trend is still toward maximum entropy,
unless my intervention can alter the parameters. fifteen thousand years will pass until the
ascendant phase of the next overall historical period.
An image eerily familiar, for he had seen it with his own eyes as well as through Center's senses.
Two young men out exploring the ancient catacombs beneath the Governor's palace in East Residence.
Unlikely friends: Thom Poplanich, grandson of the last Poplanich Governor. A slight young man in a
patrician's hunting outfit of tweed. Raj Whitehall, tall, with a swordsman's shoulders and wrists. Guard to
the reigning Barholm Clerett, and like him from distant Descott County, source of the Civil Government's
finest soldiers. Once again he saw them discover the bones outside the centrum, the bones of those
Center had considered and rejected as its agents in the world.
Raj will do it, Thom thought. If any man can reunite the world, he can.
if any man can, Center agreed. the probability of success is less than 45% ±3, even with
my assistance.
He's already beaten back the Colony. The battle of Sandoral had been the greatest victory the
Civil Government had won in generations. Destroyed the Squadron. The Squadron and its Admirals had
held the Southern Territories for more than a century, the most recent of the Military Governments to
come down out of the barbarous Base Area. And he's beating the Brigade. The 591st Provisional
Brigade were the strongest of the barbarians, and they held Old Residence, the original seat of the Civil
Government at the western end of the Midworld Sea.
to date, Center acknowledged, he has taken the crown peninsula and lion city. the more
difficult battles remain.
Men follow Raj, Thom said quietly. Not only that, he makes them do things beyond
themselves. He paused. What really worries me is Barholm Clerett. He doesn't deserve a man like
Raj serving him! And that nephew he's sent along on this campaign is worse.
cabot clerett is more able than his uncle, and less a prisoner of his obsessions, Center
noted.
That's what worries me.
 CHAPTER TWO


The cavalry were singing as they rode; the sound bawled out over the manifold thump of paws
from the riding dogs, the creak of harness and squeal of ungreased wheels from the baggage train:


Oh, we Descoteers have hairy ears —
We goes without our britches
And pops our cocks with jagged rocks,
We're hardy sons of bitches!


"Hope they're as cheerful in a month," Raj Whitehall said, looking down at the map spread over
his saddlebow. His hound Horace shifted beneath him from one foot to the other, whining with