"Kate Elliott - Jaran 4 - The Law of Becoming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elliott Kate)

her feelings. "These khaja are strange," he said instead. "Stranger even than the Habakar and the
Xiriki-khai."
 "What will you do here?" she asked.

"I will study the lay of the land," he replied. And thus was born the second element of his campaign,
the second prong of attack.

Karolla glanced toward the window and away. "I don't like it out there," she said softly.

Anatoly didn't think he would like it much out there either, but the longer he sat here, the clearer it
became that he must go.

"But as long as Bakhtiian can never come here," added Karolla in a whisper, "then I am content."

Anatoly risked a glance at her, puzzled by her odd comment, but he could not read her expression.

Karolla excused herself finally and left. Anatoly rose at once and strapped on his saber.

Then he thought better of it, and took it off. He would rather go outside without his shirt than
without his saber, but Diana had told him time and again that on no account was he to wear it outside
of the flat. He had yet to see anything that looked like a weapon on any of these khaja, indoors or out.

He went down the stairs, touched his hand to the door panel, and flinched back slightly when the
door opened. Then he descended the five stone steps to the path. He was outside, alone in the great
khaja city.

It was noisy. It smelled. But he had thought the same thing about every other khaja city he had
been in. It was time to look for the differences, the things that made Diana's people, Diana's land,
different from the cities of Karkand and Salkh and Jeds.

No horses. No wagons pulled by draft animals. The broad paved paths nearer to the houses were
meant for foot traffic. In the center of the street (Diana had made him memorize the name: Kensington
Court Place) the bicyclists pedaled past. He walked, although he still found it strange to walk and not
ride.

On the greater road, next to the huge expanse of trees and short green grass called Kensington
Gardens, huge red wheelless wagons called buses hummed along above the paved road at a sprinting
clip, disgorging and engulfing riders, while the boxier lorries seemed, like merchant's wagons, mostly
to be transporting goods. These great wagons puzzled Anatoly because they had no wheels and no
scent. Diana called them solar powered, and had explained that Mother Sun (only she also claimed
that this was a different Mother Sun from the one the jaran knew, so how was he to know whether
this was more khaja superstition or the truth?) gifted them with the power to move, and that Father
Wind granted them an air cushion on which they floated above the ground. He kept walking.

Fruits and vegetables lay in bins, smelling sweet and earthy. At another shop, slabs of meat hung
open to the air, but as he approached, confused by their lack of smell, he felt the warning tingle of a
field generator; Diana had explained to him that, like glass, it protected objects from the open air. He
stepped back quickly, not trusting khaja sorcery. Well, he knew it wasn't sorcery, but he still didn't
trust it. Above awnings, huge images of people and things lay flat against the buildings, holding on by
some agency he did not understand (Diana called them projections or billboards) and here and