Alastair J Archibald Grimm Dragonblaster 03 Questor (v5.0)
Jeffrey Lord Blade 10 Ice Dragon
Herbert, Frank The Dragon in the Sea (Under Pressure)
Naomi Novik Temeraire 1 His Majesty's Dragon
Jeffrey A. Carver Parrone The Dragons
Anny Cook Alpheli Solution (pdf)
Glen Cook Dread Empire 06 Reap The East Wind
Glen Cook Black Company 04 Silver_Spike
Glen Cook Garrett 04 Old Tin Sorrows
Dick Philip Kosmiczne marionetki
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return to routine patrol?
Kole Marmigus chuckled again.
Prune-mouthed, Stareicha observed, It must be getting near time to elect
Dictats. Very well.XII Fulminata claims first honors.
History in the making. Formalities held for no better reason than so they
could be recorded for posterity.
The shimmer behind Strate s shoulder murmured. Stareicha got a thoughful
look.
Another Guardship was coming in.XXVIII Fretensis . It brought news of an
Outsider attack upon the Closed System M. Meddinia. The creatures responsible
sounded like the methane breather aboardGlorious Spent . Curious.
HadVII Gemina stumbled into one grand skein of schemes, or two? There had
been nothing to connect the krekelen to the aliens aboard that Traveler, but
now there was a connection between those two.
Their races appeared to be at war.
That was not permitted in Canon space.
The brass of that attack outraged Hanaver Strate s sense of the natural
order.
42
Lupo could not shake a ballooning pessimism. He tried to study intelligence
abstracts but his mind refused to focus.
Simon Tregesser cruised up. He was subdued, too. I heard you had something.
He had not recovered from finding his refuge destroyed by a berserk Outsider.
We ve had sightings of two more Guardships headed in to Starbase.VII Gemina
andXXVIII Fretensis .
That s three pretty fast. Any statistical significance?
No.
Why so glum, then?
The unpredictable variables aren t coming our way often enough to please
me.
You want to put the Web locaters back, don t you?
If it sours, we lose our investment.
And I say that strategy, run to fight another day, is hopeless.
But...
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But you have some right to your argument, Lupo. Put the damned things back.
They won t know they can run. I ll give them sealed orders to be opened only
on receipt of an unlocking code.
Good. Have you made plans to get us out, too? With your usual devotion to
detail?
Yes.
It s the waiting. Relax. Go play with a woman.
Yes.
Can you say anything else?
Yes. But it d be on a subject you don t want to talk about. You have to
consider bypassing Valerena.
It isn t done, Lupo.
The House will suffer.
Tregesser made burbling, grumbling, contrary noises.
She is a Tregesser. But she comes up short on perspective, Simon. She has no
sense of timing. She s lacking in the intangibles. She can t hang on to
loyalties.
If she s feeble, she won t last. That s the way it s done.
Blessed will take it away from her. But at what cost? Suppose we catch a
Guardship. You want to imagine Valerena having her own Guardship?
We grab a Guardship, Valerena won t get her hands on it. Get me one. You ll
have no worries.
You ll give it to Blessed?
The hell I will. I ll give it to me. I ll succeed myself. You can make me a
new damned Other, a healthy one, and I ll move into it when you do the
personality impression.
That s an interesting idea. If you can get away with it.
Why shouldn t I? Tregesser did not notice Provik saying you instead of
we, thoughhe replied with I instead of we.
No clone has ever been anything but an artifact, except Valerena. But
officially only you and I know about Valerena.
Be the same thing, Lupo.
Hardly. How the hell would you hide Simon Tregesser suddenly turning up with
a healthy body? The Directors would claim it wasn t you. They d say it was
some scheme of mine to take over the House. Hell, it s been tried before.
Somebody works a deal with Banat-Marath and Troqwai and gives it a shot, and
everybody cheers him for giving Death the slip, then they show him the door to
the nearest DownTown. There s too much wealth and power at stake.
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Crap.
Human nature, Simon. It don t work. It s the iron law. They ll let you cheat
death once if you re at the top but the price is you have to start over at the
bottom. As an artifact.
Bah! Crap, I say! Watch me! You re my man, aren t you? If we can flout the
law and human nature and historical inertia to put together that mass of
firepower out there, we can get around the Directors. Can t we?
No doubt. Lupo Provik maintained the neutrality of billet steel. He was
Simon Tregesser s man, worthy of the trust he had been given, but his loyalty
had been subscribed in the certainty that Simon Tregesser was not immortal.
Hey! The more I think about it, the more I like it. Big mad peal of the old
Simon Tregesser hilarity. I m going to get on it. Something to while away the
hours. Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Immortality. Wouldn t that be a bitch!
A screaming bitch, Lupo thought as Simon zipped away, roaring and treating
his aides and allies with complete disregard. A bitch so big he would have to
reexamine his commitments and undertakings if Simon pursued it.
Not that he objected to immortality per se. It was good enough for Lupo
Provik.
43
Midnight told Turtle, You d better come. She might be coming out of it.
Turtle secured the infocomm. That s good news. Gemina had not been letting
him at much. For instance, he could access nothing about Kez Maefele.
He followed Midnight to Amber Soul s stateroom. You haven t been spending
much time with WarAvocat.
He s busy figuring out how to kill people. Her tone was peevish. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
