"George R. R. Martin - The Plague Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

“I’m for that,” said the fat anthropologist.
“Indeed,” said Tuf. “Nonetheless, I must insist. I offer you a trade—food, of the type you have requested
so melodramatically, for a poor useless nugget of information, the surrender of which costs you nothing.
We are shortly to arrive in the system of Hro B’rana, your chartered destination. I would know why we
travel there, and the nature of what you expect to find on this plague star of which I have heard you
speak.”
Celise Waan turned to the others again. “We paid good standards for food,” she said. “This is extortion.
Jefri, put your foot down!”
“Um,” said Jefri Lion. “There’s really no harm, Celise. He’ll find out anyway, when we arrive. Perhaps it
is time he knew.”
“Nevis,” she said, “aren’t you going to do anything?”
“Why?” he demanded. “It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. Tell him and get your meat. Or not. I
don’t care.”
Waan glared at Kaj Nevis, and then even more fiercely at the cool pale face of Haviland Tuf, crossed her
arms, and said, “All right, if that’s the way it has to be, I’ll sing for my supper.”
“A normal speaking voice will be quite acceptable,” said Tuf.
Celise Waan ignored him. “I’ll make this short and sweet. The discovery of the plague star is my greatest
triumph, the capstone of my career, but none of you have the wit or the courtesy to appreciate the work
that went into it. I am an anthropologist with the ShanDellor Center for the Advancement of Culture and
Knowledge. My academic specialty is the study of primitive cultures of a particular sort—cultures of
colony worlds left to isolation and technological devolution in the wake of the Great War. Of course,
many human worlds were so affected, and a number of these have been studied extensively. I worked in
less well-known fields—the investigation of nonhuman cultures, especially those of former Hrangan slave
worlds. One of the worlds I studied was Hro B’rana. Once it was a flourishing colony, a breeding ground
for Hruun and dactyloids and lesser Hrangan slave races, but today it’s a devastation. Such sentients that
still live there live short, ugly, brutal lives, although like most such decayed cultures, they also have tales of
a vanished golden age. But the most interesting thing about Hro B’rana is a legend, a legend unique to
them—the plague star.
“Let me stress that the devastation on Hro B’rana is extreme, and the underpopulation severe, despite
the fact that the environment is not especially harsh. Why? Well, the degenerate descendants of both
Hruun and dactyloid colonists, whose cultures are otherwise utterly different and very hostile to each
other, have a common answer to that: the plague star. Every third generation, just as they are climbing out
of their misery, as populations are swelling once again, the plague star waxes larger and larger in their
nighttime skies. And when this star becomes the brightest in the heavens, then the season of plagues
begins. Pestilences sweep across Hro B’rana, each more terrible than the last. The healers are helpless.
Crops wither, animals perish, and three-quarters of the sentient population dies. Those who survive are
thrown back into the most brutal sort of existence. Then the plague star wanes, and with its waning the
plagues pass from Hro B’rana for another three generations. That is the legend.”
Haviland Tuf’s face had been expressionless as he listened to Celise Waan relate the tale. “Interesting,”
he said now. “I must surmise, however, that our present expedition has not been mounted simply to
further your career by investigating this arresting folk tale.”
“No,” Celise Waan admitted. “That was once my intent, yes. The legend seemed an excellent topic for a
monograph. I was trying to get funding from the Center for a field investigation, but they turned down my
request. I was annoyed, and justly so. Those shortsighted fools. I mentioned my annoyance, and the
cause, to my colleague, Jefri Lion.”
Lion cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said. “And my field, as you know, is military history. I was intrigued, of
course. I buried myself in the Center databanks. Our files are not nearly as complete as those at Avalon
and Newholme, but there wasn’t time for a more thorough investigation. We had to act quickly. You see,
my theory—well, it’s more than theory, really—I believe, in fact I’m all but certain, that I know what this
plague star is. It’s no legend, Tuf! It’s real. It must be a derelict, yes, abandoned but still operational, still