"Eric Flint & K. D. Wentworth - The Course of Empire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Eric)

He would probably be right. Strategy did not deal in absolutes.
 PART I:
Firsts

Chapter 1
Aille krinnu ava Pluthrak found Terra a world of unharmonious contrasts. His ears,
set low and back on his skull, swiveled to take in the nearby murmur of the sea, along
with the unnerving screeches of an avian lifeform native to his new posting.
Windward, water of a startling blue lapped at a pale expanse of sand, while,
heartward, unbridled green plant growth vied with the graceless piles of stone and glass
that guarded the periphery of the great Jao military base. In front of one building, several
rectangles of red and gold fabric had been secured to the top of a pole. Even from here,
he could hear the cloth snapping in the breeze. Bizarre, but he supposed they must serve
some purpose.
The compact, elegant ship behind him radiated heat from its descent through the
atmosphere, its engines ticking as they cooled. His favorite kochan-mother, Trit, had
thought the vessel too showy for one as newly emerged as Aille. But Meku, the current
kochanau, had said Pluthrak must maintain its status for all to see. The more so since the
Governor of Terra was Oppuk krinnu ava Narvo—a scion of Narvo kochan, with whom
Pluthrak kochan's relations were very strained.
Exhilarated at finally having the opportunity to be of use, Aille attenuated his
perception of the moment's flow in order to better take in his new surroundings. The
wind-tossed waves slowed to languid, enticing swells and reminded him that he'd had no
opportunity to swim since leaving Marit An. His ship was equipped with adequate
sanitary facilities, but not the luxury of an actual pool. After the long trip, his skin felt
desiccated, his nap stiff, and his whiskers reduced to lifeless strings. He longed to
immerse himself in this new sea, despite its alien scent, and sluice the accumulated dregs
of travel away.
First, however, he must officially accept his new command. Later, when the flow of
arrival was complete, he would indulge himself.
The yellow sun of this solar system beat down, brighter than Nir, his homeworld's
star, which was farther along in the main sequence. He gazed out past the base's
buildings, whiskers quivering. The land before him was so unrelentingly—flat.
He thought wistfully of the cliffs back at his kochan-house. There, the tide pounded
against massive black rocks both early and late, and the breeze was always filled with the
refreshing cool tang of spray. Here, the sultry air was thick with indigenous salts and
more than a hint of decay. Well, his time on Marit An had completed itself. It was the
duty of all Jao scions to cast themselves into time's river in the ongoing struggle against
the Ekhat, and that he would do.
The voyage from his birthworld, Marit An, to Terra had been long but fruitful, filled
with discourse with his fraghta and study for the responsibilities which awaited him. It
was his last opportunity to take advantage of the older Jao's accumulated wisdom before
assuming his new post as Subcommandant and he did his best to absorb as much as
possible. By the end, he believed he knew the indigenous species as well as anyone could
without ever having come nose to nose with one.
Farther away, in the distance, Aille could see several ruined buildings. Those were
apparently a legacy of the Jao conquest over twenty orbital cycles ago. He had detected
more signs of unamended damage as he'd swept in for landing: fractured, overgrown
roads, cast-off machinery, abandoned dwellings now inundated by wilderness. By all
reports, this political moiety had resisted long after the rest of this stubborn world and