"Charles Stross - Duat" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

"It was -- " Raisa stalled in mid-speech and took a deep breath. She looked very
disappointed. "We hoped you were part of the second wave."

"We?"

"The others. They're giving you a wide berth, lots of time to adjust. It's been years, you
see. We started out as a pathfinder team. Some of us still are, except that we don't know
whether -- "

" -- whether there's anyone following you?"

Raisa started. "What!"

Oshi dropped her spoon on the table with a clatter. "I'm not a fool," she said tiredly. "You
hoped I'm from your home world, but I'm not. Pathfinders need followers. What was this?
A migration? Colony hijacking?"

"We had no idea there was anything out here."


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2: In the Duat


Oshi stared. The other woman looked tired and depressed, the reluctant bearer of news
worn ragged with repetition. "Hang on. You beamed out with no destination in mind?"

"Come on. It's not unheard of! Aim at a system and hope there's a gatecoder looking for
incoming packets. If you miss, there's the rest of the universe to hope for."

"But that's a suicide bet!"

"And these times are dangerous," Raisa said, a clipped, false brightness in her voice. "If
you've never been to the Centre you have no right to judge just how dangerous." Her voice
rose: " they were going to destroy our world! Never mind that they already had all the
planets outside the water belt around our primary -- they wanted our world too! There was
a total Dreamtime lockout. They took it over completely. Anyone who tried to access it
fried their brains out. We had to build a gatecoder from library specs and aim it where we
thought someone might see the pulse. Don't you see? It was our only hope of survival!"

Oshi picked up her spoon again. "Who was attacking you? Who are these people you call
they?"

Raisa stood up: "I was right. You don't know anything. I sent word to Boris, via the
network, but they didn't believe me. Nobody told you, or word never got out."

"Word of what?"

"There's a war going on. Did anyone tell you?"