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this gullible Edwards creature seemed to assume it would be normal. Perhaps
there was some way to-The Regent stopped so suddenly that a hapless adviser
plowed into him.
The Regent flung the adviser aside in a carelessly non-lethal way, and
began talking excitedly to his attendant Scientists. "Are my wife's Genesis
Pits here on Optera still functional? Well, find out! And if they're not, make
them ready for a project of monumental proportions! Divert workers and
technicians and Scientists from other projects; bring them here by starship if
need be!
"Oh, what a joke on the cursed Humans!" the Regent hooted. So, the Regis
thinks I lost my sense of humor when I decided to devolve, eh?
Burak sealed the hatch and slipped into place, seated before Tesla's
cage. There were a few Karbarrans on guard outside in the passageway, but they
had been joined by friends for a kind of victory feast, and nobody was being
very...very "strac," as the humans called it.
Tesla said nothing, only sat looking like an immense Buddha. Burak
reached inside his robes, eyes averted, his horns dipping.
He came up with three luminous perfect spheres, as green as a breaking
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
wave, as green as molten bottle glass. Seeing them, Tesla almost broke his
guru pose and reached, but knew that he would only receive a shock charge from
the bars of his cage for his troubles.
"The Fruit of the Rower of Life, as grown on Karbarra," Burak said.
"So." Tesla sat, looking down at the three.
There was legend among the Invid, and among many other cultures as well,
about consuming the Fruit of the Flower. The implication was that the
consumption of Fruit from all the worlds Especially Touched by Haydon-all the
worlds, it happened, from which the Sentinels came-would bring forth some
larger, more magnificent manifestation of the one who consumed it.
Tesla had spent a lifetime steeped in this occultish lore; he was
convinced that there was a scientific basis to it. "Give those to me," he
said, "and give me Fruit from the rest of Haydon's Worlds, the other worlds of
the Sentinels."
"I don't trust you," Burak said.
"I don't expect you to," Tesla shot back. "Why do you think peace is so
difficult to achieve?"
Burak slammed his fist on the deck. "Stop talking around it! Can you
take the curse off Peryton or not?"
Tesla saw a bulge in the waist rope of Burak's robes and knew a pistol
was there, knew what his fate would be if he couldn't sway Burak right here
and now.
"I can. But you're going to have to help me. Trust me. And I'll help you
win back your family, Burak, and your planet, and everything you've lost.
Because you're the one fated to be Peryton's messiah."
Burak sat trembling for a long time, looking at the deck. Then he dipped
his head once, horns swaying, nodding in agreement.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Why did Jonathan leave me? How come Lisa's bouquet came right into my hands
after the wedding and yet everything's gone wrong?
It all started off so beautifully.
The diary of Lynn-Minmei
The Karbarrans threw themselves into the effort to get the Sentinels ready for
the next step in their war with the same energy the ursinoids had shown in
destroying the Invid garrison.
Unfortunately, a good deal of the capital's industrial area had been
razed. There were shops capable of repairing most of the damaged VTs and
tanks, and spaceship yards where Farrago could be put back in full
battle-worthiness, but no new mecha could be built anytime soon.
Some Sentinels argued that it would be better to wait, to build new war
machines and perhaps even construct more ships, but Rick and Lisa, among
others, argued that lives would probably be lost on Praxis in the meantime,
and the decision to continue on to the amazon homeworld became
unanimous-except for Burak's stubborn abstention.
The vote was one of the few things Rick and Lisa did agree on. Though
the mecha were being repaired, there were gaps in the ranks of the Human
fighters, casualties who had left unmanned machines behind. The two were
silent on the subject until the night, in their private quarters, when he
admitted, "I'm going back on combat duty with the Skulls, Lisa. They need me.
And we still won't be able to get every VT manned." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]