"Norton, Andre - Star Gate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Andre Norton)

Star Gate
by ANDRE NORTON



ACE BOOKS, INC.
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York 36, N. Y.
Copyright ©, 1958, by Harcourt, Bracfe & Co., Inc. An Ace Book, by arrangement
with Harcourt, Brace & Co., Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Printed in U.S.A.
Contents
PROLOGUE
1. INHEBITANCE
2. THE BATTLE OF THE WASTE
3. NO SHIP--BUT--
4. NEW-FOUND WOULD
5. A QUESTION OF BIRTHRIGHT
6. LEGEND COME ALIVE
7. FALSE GODS
8. FIRST FORAY
9. VOLUNTEER
10. STORM, NIGHT, AND THE SHRINE
11. ILL-CHANCED MEETING
12. A MEETING WITH LORD RUD
13. ORDEAL BY MOHD
14. THE PLACE OF TOWERS
15 TRIAL OF STRENGTHS
16. RESCUE
17. INVASION
18. ONCE MORE A GATE--
PROLOGUE
HISTORY is not only a collection of facts; it is a spider's web of ifs. If
Napoleon had not lost the Battle of Waterloo, if the American colonies had
lost the Revolution, if the South and not the North had won the Civil War . .
. The procession of such ifs is endless, exciting the imagination and spurring
endless speculation. Sometimes the all important turning point can be
compressed into a single small action--the death of one man, a seemingly casual
decision.
And if the larger history of a nation, or a world, depends upon so many chance
ifs, so also does the personal history of each and every one of us. Because we
are five minutes late or ten minutes early for an appointment, because we
catch one bus but miss another, our life is completely changed.
There exists a fascinating theory that two worlds branch from every bit of
destiny action. Hence, there are far reaching bands of parallel worlds, born
of many historical choices. Thus, if some means of communication could be
devised a man might travel, not backwards or forwards in time, but across it
to visit, for example, a contemporary world which resulted from a successful
Viking colonization of the North American continent, or one in which William