"Jack Vance - Demon Prince 04 - The Face" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

The Face
By Jack Vance
Book 4 in the "Demon Prince" Series

PART 1
Aloysius

Chapter 1

From Popular Handbook to the Planets, 330th edition,
1525:

Aloysius, Vega VI

Planetary constants:

Diameter 7340 miles
Sidereal day 19.836218 hours
Mass 0,86331 standard
Et cetera

Aloysius, with its sister planets Boniface and Cuthbert,
is accounted among the first worlds to be colonized from
Earth, and the traveler who enjoys the ambience of antiq-
uity will here find much to please him.

Contrary to popular assumption, the first settlers were
not religious zealots but members of the Natural Universe
Society, who dealt gingerly with the new environment, and
built nothing at discord with the landscape.

The NUS is long gone, but its influence still permeates
the system, and almost everywhere will be noted a sedate
reverence for native customs and textures.

The axis of Aloysius inclines to an angle of 31.7 degrees
from its plane of orbit; there are seasonal fluctuations of
notable severity, mollified somewhat by a dense and moist
atmosphere. Of the seven continents Marcy's Land is the
largest, with New Wexford its chief city. The least of the

THF OPTION PRINCES

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continents is Gavin's Land, on which is situated the city
Pontefract.

It may here be noted that each land, during the Sac-
erdotal Epochs, represented the diocese of a cardinal and