"Daniel Keys Moran - Realtime" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moran Daniel Keys)

 The change, she was certain, had been the dataweb. In one stroke, the
dataweb had destroyed money, and privacy, and books. It was the loss of
the books that hurt the worst. Nobody had actually taken the books and
burned them, not like in Nazi Germany; they just stopped printing them.
The books died, and were not replaced. Oh, there were collectors, and
private libraries; but the vast majority of the younger generation had
never even seen a real book, much less read one.
The train of thought was an old, familiar friend; nothing new. She rose
after a while, slowly, and went into the kitchen to make herself a cup of
tea. While the water boiled she entered the hallway that led to her study.
In the study she turned the lights on; they were incandescents, not
glowpaint. The walls of the study were lined with books, several thousands
of them, all hardbound. The paperbacks, which had once outnumbered
the hardbacks, had disintegrated years ago. Immediately to the right of
the study's door, Maggie turned to face one bookshelf whose books were in
barely readable condition; her favorites, the books that she re-read most
often, and which she read most often to Tia and Mark.
She pulled down one battered, dilapidated volume. Its leather binding
was dry, and cracked. On the spine of the book, there were flecks of gold
that had once inscribed a title. The absence of the title didn't bother
Maggie; she knew her books. This was The Three Musketeers.
Returning to her living room, she placed the book on the stand next to
her rocker, and finished making her tea. She gathered Miss Kitty to her,
and settled in for the night.

On the first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the bourg of Meung,
in which the author of the "Romance of the Rose" was born, appeared to
be in as perfect a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a
second Rochelle of it....



Monday morning, March the fifteenth, Maggie was interrupted by the
chiming of the door. Maggie left her toast and went to answer the door.
There were half a dozen people outside, dressed in the simple gray cloak
and tunic of the Praxcelis Corporation. Leading the group that stood on
her outer porch was a young woman in a slightly darker gray and silver
uniform. She was looking about Maggie's home as though she had never
seen a single, detached residence before, and indeed, probably she hadn't.
They were as much a thing of the past as Maggie herself, and her books.
"Senra Archer?" The tall woman asked inquisitively. "I'm Senra Conroy,
from Praxcelis." She smiled slightly. "We've come to install your new
Praxcelis unit."
Maggie said, as pleasantly as she was able, "Of course. Please come in."
She moved out of the doorway to let them through. They followed her in,
two of them guiding the boxed Praxcelis unit as it hovered in through the
door on antigrav pads.
"Where do you want your unit?" asked Senra Conroy.
Maggie bit back the answer that sprang immediately to her lips. These
people weren't responsible for the intrusion. She pointed to the far corner