"Lawrence Watt-Evans - War Surplus 01 - The Cyborg And The Sorcerers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

the room and found Techniques of Weather and Storm Control. That still wasn't very basic, but it
sounded interesting; he lifted the volume down from the shelf and opened it carefully.

He had half expected it to be old and dusty, in keeping with the traditional image of a wizard's book;
instead it was fresh and clean, smelling of new leather and ink. The pages were neatly if unevenly cut, and
not at all worn, showing not so much as a smudged thumbprint; the binding was still stiff. It was, he saw,
printed, and not hand-lettered; the art of movable type had apparently not been lost The planet continued
to surprise him. Still, he should have realized that a library such as this would be extremely unlikely
without the printing press.

There was a title page, printed in blood red; at the bottom of the page he found a warning that read, "This
book is for the use of magicians of the fifth degree or above, and is dangerous to lesser magicians." He
would have expected such a warning to be embellished with curses and dire threats, but perhaps that was
unnecessary when the magic actually worked. The book might well really be dangerous to an amateur.
He wondered whether these wizards actually could influence storms and weather; if so, the upper
echelon might be capable of enforcing their decrees without resorting to threats.

It seemed unlikely; probably the book was a sham.

The print was quite large throughout, he saw; he theorized that the wizards tended toward poor vision,
poor lighting, poor typemakers, or all three. In any case, it was no strain to read even in the dim
candlelight He turned to the first page and began scanning the text.

As he read his opinion of the planet's culture improved with every page; this book was, as far as he could
see, an accurate, scientific description of atmospheric behavior. He found no mystic nonsense of spirits or
magical forces; instead there was a straightforward explanation of air currents, evaporation,
condensation, frontal patterns, air pressure ...

Technology might be lacking in this culture, but their knowledge of at least one science surpassed his
own. He wondered whether the book was a transcription of a surviving prewar work, or whether the
information had somehow been rediscovered and accumulated since. Perhaps some had been transmitted
orally.

So far, however, the book had little to do with anti-gravity, or staring at a gun and making one's skin
crawl, or locating hidden people, or flying with no visible means of propulsion. He read on.

A soft sound interrupted him; he turned and saw that a large black cat had entered the room, presumably
through the open door—he didn't think he could have failed to see it had it already been in the chamber.
It studied him.

The two stared at each other for a moment; then Slant returned to his book, and the cat began washing
itself.

A moment later there was another interruption as the computer regained contact

"Query: Relevance of text to present investigation."

Slant had been thoroughly absorbed in his book and took a moment before replying. "It's relevant, all
right. This is an instruction manual for controlling the weather with whatever-it-is." He did not mention
that so far the book had explained in great detail how weather worked and what various manipulations of