Ultima

Начало книги

There was satisfaction. The network of mind continued to push out in space, from the older stars, the burned-out worlds, to the young, out across the Galaxy. Pushed deep in time too, twisting the fate of countless trillions of lives.

But time was short, and ever shorter.

In the Dream of the End Time, there was a note of urgency.

“Danger, Yuri Eden! Danger!”

“ColU? What’s the emergency? Another Prox flare? We need to get to the shelter.”

“Be calm, Yuri Eden. You are no longer on Per Ardua.”

“Beth. Beth and Mardina. Where—”

“Your daughter and her mother are far from here.”

“Far?… Are they safe?”

“That I cannot tell you, Yuri Eden. We must carry on in the presumption that they are.”

“So why did you yell ‘danger’ in my ear?”

“It was the only way to wake you, Yuri Eden. The drugs the medicus has been prescribing for you are rather random in their effects, although they are satisfactorily strong.”

“So you lied, right? Since when was an autonomous colonization unit programmed to lie?”

Читать дальше →