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

ledge on the end-wall of the colony, about a fifth of the way down from the hub. There


file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Stross,%20Charles%20-%20Duat%20(ss).html (28 of 103)4-7-2007 2:25:58
2: In the Duat

was no sign of her abductors. The ledge was about ten metres long; at one end of it there
was a door, and at the other end an entrance of a different kind --

No. I am not going to go in there. Not again. The aversion she felt was terrifyingly strong.

She rose to her feet unsteadily. "What --" she began. The world pancaked around her
shoulders. "Is -- " She looked round. "happening?"

The door opened, creaking. Steps worn smooth with age led up in an improbable sweep of
gothic lunacy to a parlour beneath a high-arched ceiling. Now she could see inside it, she
realised that it led up and out into the huge grey structure that jutted out of the end wall of
the colony. Huge windows leaned outwards at an improbable angle, canted across the
axial abyss. A small inorganic drone shaped like a skittle waited in the centre of the room.

"Oshi Adjani. God will see you now."

"God -- " she stared at the drone. "What are you talking about?"

"God," it repeated with the patience of a stone. "Will see you now."

Oshi shuddered, gulped back a cry of laughter or pain, blinked and looked around. God. Il
Duce. Der Fuehrer. Right. Hot dawn light streamed in through the oval windows, staining
the walls with liquid fire. Behind her, the lift shaft that opened onto the ledge belched
softly. She seemed to hear the echoing cries of lunacy born upwards on the waft of
circulatory gases: Il Duce ... Oshi swallowed . "Take me to him."

This Superbright is either a practical joker or a lunatic. Or both. Why did I ever say yes to
this? Her ribs still ached from the terror-ride. As she climbed the steps, the drone retreated
before her, legs clicking softly on the stone floor. At the top, she turned and looked back
down the ledge: gulped and looked away quickly. The sight of the gigantic throat opening
onto a stone platform made her feel queasy.

The drone retreated up a twilit corridor, painted in faded ochre heiroglyphics: intricate
pictures of sloe-eyed men and women and animal-headed aliens competed for space with
less familiar representations. Black and grey tiles danced a subliminal symmetry before
her eyes. One glance out of the windows had told her everything she needed to know,
coupled with the reduced gravity. The redoubt was slung just below the axis, defended by
a cliff-face kilometres high: it merged at the top with the axial tube that ran from the
interior of the colony cylinder out into whatever space-based factories kept the system
running. The sky outside was the deep blue of dawn, but such light as there was would not
reach far inside this structure. Someone -- whoever lived here -- had no liking for daylight.


file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Stross,%20Charles%20-%20Duat%20(ss).html (29 of 103)4-7-2007 2:25:58