"Daniel Keys Moran - Lord November" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moran Daniel Keys)

In a time when some of the living had once been machines, and some machines had once lived, where
the body a being wore might not have been the sex or the species it was born to, it was known that
Bodhisatva was a man in the old style; born human, male, genetically unreconstructed. He was of slightly
below average height by modern standards; his eyes and skin were brown and his hair was black and it
was said he could not change the color of any of them without help from dyes or lenses.
Some things were general knowledge; the Source would tell you, if you asked it. It was known that
Bodhi had never had biosculpture; and that, though he maintained a form lean and muscular in the
modern style, the maintenance took him an hour a day working out in high gee on the gravity jungle
aboard his ship. There were a dozen fine immune management nanosystems Bodhi could have had
installed that would have taken over the job of maintaining his muscles for him; but Bodhi, as he had
explained in a rare public statement forty years prior, did not trust such systems and saw no reason to
deprive himself of workouts he enjoyed.
It was assumed that he ran one of the better defensive immune systems; in his line of work it would be
critical. But no one really knew.

Devnet System is notable for two things; and its small colony of Novembri is not one of them. There
are twelve Gates at Devnet, twelve entry points into the web of spacelace tunnels that link the stars
together. In 2677, over five hundred years after the end of the war with the sleem, humanity knows of
only two larger clusters: the system in which the planet Domain is located has thirteen; and a black hole,
near the Galactic Core, has thirty- one.
The other notable thing about Devnet is the tunnel its Third Gate opens upon. Its Third Gate opens on
one of the four ridiculously long tunnels humanity knows of in the Continuing Time. Its transit time is eight
years, and it connects Devnet System with a red dwarf on the other side of the Galactic Core, sixty
thousand light years from Earth.
The Shivering Bastard broke into real space through Devnet System's First Gate. Bodhi, awaiting
the event in the relative comfort of the Bastard's observation bubble, had an inhumanly brief impression
of impossible glare, and then found himself enveloped by blackness. The impression of glare had not
come from his organic eyes, but from the tap the Shivering Bastard used to feed him information.
WELL, said Bodhi, THAT WAS INTERESTING.
The Shivering Bastard said, YES. WE THINK--
The observation bubble cleared. Bodhi looked upon a universe shifted blue in one direction, red in
another. Though different stars were visible, and odd patches of space glowed bright blue with the
stepped-up infrared from warm dust clouds, it did not otherwise look much different from what he was
used to; in the direction of his travel stellar radio waves shifted up into visible light, and stellar gamma
radiation, chasing him from behind, dropped down into his visible spectrum.
--WE WERE HIT WITH A HELL OF A LASER. The Bastard paused, and then said, OR
PERHAPS NOT.
Already two million klicks away from Devnet's First Gate, heading inSystem at near lightspeed, the
Shivering Bastard's scopes peered backward. Bodhi examined their red-shifted image, transmitted via
his tap directly into his forebrain, with interest.
Parabolic mirrors....nine of them; Bodhi had no way of guessing their size.
ABOUT FOUR HUNDRED KLICKS IN DIAMETER, said the Bastard. WE THINK WE
KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SHIPS THE NOVEMBER GUARD SENT THROUGH.
At the focal points of the nine parabolic mirrors sat Devnet's First Gate; where the reflections of those
mirrors met was a region hotter than the surface of most stars. A ship coming through the Gate at the
usual velocity of only a few hundred kilometers per hour...Bodhi shivered at the thought.
The picture came clear slowly, Ship's scopes sought the positions of the other eleven Gates, and
found eleven of the twelve basking in the warmth of Devnet's mirrored regard. Only one Gate was not so
protected; and Bodhi's instant guess--the Third Gate, opening on the ridiculously long tunnel--was