randomhousebooks.com опубликовал еще один отрывок из выходящего в апреле романа Тимоти Зана "Траун". Пометка в файле гласит, что данный фрагмент текста не окончательный, и может не войти в финальный вариант книги. Впрчем, часть этого текста уже публиковалась в прессе, так что можно предполагать, что отрывки вполне аутентичные.
Кусок, представляющий собой что-то вроде воспоминаний Трауна (от первого лица)***
All beings begin their lives with hopes and aspirations. Among these aspirations is the desire that there will be a straight path to those goals.
It is seldom so. Perhaps never.
Sometimes the turns are of one’s own volition, as one’s thoughts and goals change over time. But more often the turns are mandated by outside forces.
It was so with me. The memory is vivid, unsullied by age: the five admirals rising from their chairs as I am escorted into the chamber. The decision of the Ascendancy has been made, and they are here to deliver it.
None of them is happy with the decision. I can read that in their faces. But they are officers and servants of the Chiss, and they will carry out their orders. Protocol alone demands that.
The word is as I expected.
Exile.
The planet has already been chosen. The admirals will assemble the equipment necessary to ensure that solitude does not quickly become death from predators or the elements.
I am led away. Once again, my path has turned.
Where it will lead, I cannot sayКусок с началом сцены в тронном зале Императора***
Eli had almost managed to convince himself that the group would merely be meeting with some Palace official when they were ushered past a pair of red-robed and red-helmeted Imperial Guards into the Emperor’s throne room.
Even more than Coruscant itself, the holos and vids Eli had seen of Emperor Palpatine paled in comparison with the real thing.
At first glance the Emperor didn’t seem like much. He was dressed in a plain brown hooded robe, with no ornamentation or glitz of any sort. His throne, while massive, was solid black and very simple, again with no ostentation about it, raised a mere four steps above the floor. In fact, the darkness of his robe made him almost disappear from sight into the black of the throne.
It was as the group drew closer that the eeriness began. The first was the Emperor’s face. The holos and vids always showed him as a dignified, older man, aged somewhat with the experience of life and the cares of leadership. But the holos were wrong. The face beneath the hood was old, and creased with a hundred deep wrinkles.
Not ordinary wrinkles, either, the kind Eli’s grandparents had earned from years under the open sky.
These creases were less like age and more like scars or burn tissue.
The histories stated that the Jedi traitors’ last attempt to seize power had been an attack on then-Chancellor Palpatine. The histories hadn’t mentioned that his victory over the assassins had come at such a terrible cost.
Perhaps that was also what had happened to his eyes.
A shiver ran up Eli’s back. The eyes were bright and intelligent, all-knowing and utterly powerful. But they were . . . strange. Unique. Disturbing. Damaged, perhaps, by the same treachery that had ravaged his face? Intelligence, knowledge, power. And, even more than with Thrawn, a sense of complete mastery over everything around him.
The Emperor watched in silence as the party walked toward him. Parck led the way, Barris and Eli behind him, followed by Thrawn and the trooper and stormtrooper witnesses. The guard contingent Parck had brought remained outside the door, six of the Imperial Guards having taken over their escort duty.
It seemed to take forever to reach the throne. Eli wondered how close they would be permitted to approach, and how Captain Parck would know when he had reached that point. The question was answered as Parck came to within five meters and the two Imperial Guards at the foot of the steps glided to positions directly in front of him. Parck stopped, the rest of them following suit, and waited.
And waited.
It was probably only five seconds. But to Eli it felt like a medium-size eternity. The entire throne room was utterly still, utterly silent. The only sound was the thudding of his pulse in his ears, the only movement the shaking of his arms in his sleeves.
“Captain Parck,” the Emperor said at last, his gravelly voice neutral. “I’m told you bring me a gift.”
(далее идет продолжение, ранее уже публиковавшееся в USAToday.com
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