"Dan Simmons - Hyperion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Simmons Dan)

been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain 1990
by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING
First published in paperback in 1990
by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING
First HEADLINE FEATURE paperback in 1991
10987
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be
otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on
the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to
real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
ISBN 0 7472 3482 5
Typeset in 10/10h pt English Times
by Coiset Private Limited, Singapore
Printed and bound in Great Britain by







Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berkshire
HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING A division of Hodder Headline PLC 338 Euston
Road
London NW1 3BH
This is for Ted
PROLOGUE
The Hegemony Consul sat on the balcony of his ebony spaceship and played
Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp Minor on an ancient but
well-maintained Steinway while great, green, saurian things surged and
bellowed in the swamps below. A thunderstorm was brewing to the north.
Bruise-black clouds silhouetted a forest of giant gymnosperms while
stratocumulus towered nine kilometers high in a violent sky. Lightning
rippled along the horizon. Closer to the ship, occasional vague,
reptilian shapes would blunder into the interdiction field, cry out, and
then crash away through indigo mists. The Consul concentrated on a
difficult section of the Prelude and ignored the approach of storm and
nightfall.
The fatline receiver chimed.
The Consul stopped, fingers hovering above the keyboard, and listened.
Thunder rumbled through the heavy air. From the direction of the
gymnosperm forest there came the mournful ululation of a carrion-breed
pack. Somewhere in the darkness below, a small-brained beast trumpeted
its answering challenge and fell quiet.