"Morris, Janet - Kerrion Empire 03 - Earth Dreams UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morris Janet E)

home to ancestral Earth, disgraced—a lowly proconsul
charged with the impossible task of bringing the deter-
minedly rebellious primitives of Earth into his society as
civilized citizens—he forbade his wife, Shebat, the heir ap-
parent, to accompany him.

But she came upon her own initiative, piloting her own
spongespace cruiser, Kerrion Experimental Vehicle 134
Marada, forsaking the administrative sphere Draconis,
where she was consul, for the rocky hills where she was
raised. For Shebat was born into Earthly destitution and
Earthly superstition, and imagined herself an enchantress
until Chaeron s half brother Marada—now consul general
of Kerrion space—had chanced upon her and spirited her
away into a universe which Kerrions ruled from great plat-
forms skewed among the stars. Adopted into the Kerrion
family for political reasons by its patriarch, she had be-
come a spongespace pilot, a dream dancer, a fugitive, a
revolutionary, and at last heir apparent and Draconis
consul.

When she put her cruiser into orbit and without so much

VI JANET MORRIS

as a greeting descended into the wilderness that was Earth,
Chaeron could do little but go planetside personally to
seek her out: she commanded her own cruiser, and all its
prodigious intelligence; she was afflicted with the madness
all pilots contract; though they were man and wife, it was
a marriage he had forced on her through blackmail and
guile while still he strove to become heir apparent, himself.

When he found her, he strove to watch his tongue: she
outranked him.

And he was not unaware that she might easily bear him
a grudge. . . .

Chapter One

Far back from the cave of the oracle who was
called Shebat the Twice Risen, five mounted enchanters
waited amid a stand of trees, lounging in their saddles
trapped with gold. Their fearsome black steeds cropped
grass that greened their bits and rolled blue, wicked eyes
at the sixth, riderless horse, who grazed by the cavern's
very mouth.

At first sight of them, all the folk gathered to consult