"Walter Jon Williams - Dread Empire's Fall - 02 - The Sundering" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter John)

Sula watched as the juggler spun and danced in the…

NINE

Martinez wandered through the Yoshitoshi Palace in a kind of…

TEN

That the Convocation was to take Wormhole 2 to Zarafan…

ELEVEN

Steadied by the arm of the rigger who helped him…

TWELVE

Lady Michi’s dining room was large enough for the formal…

THIRTEEN

As Goddess of the Records Office, Sula worked to cover…

FOURTEEN

The day after the ring was destroyed Sula took the…

FIFTEEN

Warrant Officer Shushanik Severin thought of the cooking oil in…

SIXTEEN

Ten days after the fall of the ring, the first…

SEVENTEEN

Cousin Marcia gave birth to a boy two days after…

EIGHTEEN

By the time they arrived in their own home area…


 PROLOGUE

Warrant Officer Severin avoided the glances of his crew. He had led them into this misery, and now he was unable to lead them out.

The cockpit window of the lifeboat was covered in frost, delicate white clusters of frozen spears that reflected the red light of the Maw, the supernova ejecta that formed a giant scarlet ring which dominated the Protipanu system. The lifeboat was grappled to the nickel-iron asteroid 302948745AF, which was receding from the Protipanu 2 wormhole gate, and from the enemy fleet that guarded it.

The problem was that 302948745AF wasn’t receding nearly fast enough. If Severin ordered the lifeboat away from the asteroid, he’d be detected by the ten enemy warships in the system and either captured or destroyed. But if he did nothing, he and his crew would run out of food, or possibly even die of cold.