Star of Gypsies
- Автор: Силверберг Роберт
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Star of Gypsies». Краткое содержание книги:
What's that you're saying? Why bother trying to hold the fabric of the worlds together at all? Why not simply let each planet live in blessed isolation, wrapped in its snug blanket of light-years? And do without the whole intricate and costly structure of the Imperium entirely?
Now that's a medieval concept if ever I heard one. And even in old medieval Earth it wasn't possible to make it work, though they certainly tried. There was no way for any nation to keep aloof from other nations for long. Weak ones that attempted it inevitably wound up being subjugated in one way or another. Strong ones might make isolationist policies stick for a time, but sooner or later they'd become inbred and decadent and start to slide into a dismal irreversible decline. Only when the Earth folk accepted some notion of their interdependence did they begin to attain something like civilization. As the ancient Gaje poet said, No man is an island, entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod is washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. Exactly. Europe was one of their most famous continents, a small one but very important. The same poet went on to say, Any man's death diminishes me. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Yes indeed. It is the same for nations. And it is the same for worlds.
Now we have gone sprawling and brawling out into the stars, filling the many worlds with ourselves and with the beasts of lost dead Earth that we brought with us for company, cows and horses and snakes and toads. We have spread like an unstoppable tide across a universe that probably regarded itself as perfectly satisfactory without us, and we have overwhelmed great sectors of it. And yet, and yet, for all our tremendous outward spill we are nothing but a thin dark thread lying across the Milky Way. If any of us were to try to stand alone, he would be lost. So we reach out-we who are just so many scattered beads bobbing on this great ocean of night, if you don't mind my changing metaphors on you, and if a king can't switch metaphors I'd like to know who can-and we try to maintain connection with one another. And that is why there is an Imperium; and that is why there is an emperor; and that is why when the emperor dies we all stand at the brink of chaos.
You may have noticed that in venting all this passion upon you I did not stop to draw distinctions between Gaje and Rom. Indeed. We have our differences, yes-how great those differences are, the Gaje don't begin to suspect!-but we have our great similarities too, and I never allow myself to forget that, either. They are human and we are human. This ocean in which we drift is very wide and we are very small; and all of us need whatever allies we can find. The Gajo is the enemy, yes: so we are taught from childhood. But the Gajo is also the only friend. It is a very perplexing business. Most important matters in life are like that. We Rom have kept ourselves apart, an island in the vast Gaje sea, for if we had not done that we would have been lost; and yet we have joined hands with them also, as much as is possible, for if we had not done that we would also have been lost. We are a Kingdom outside the Imperium, but we are of the Imperium as well. That is not easy to understand. It was not easy to achieve, either. But I tell you this, that the death of the Gaje emperor diminishes us all, even us Rom. No man is an island.
I HEARD RUMBLES AND DISTURBANCES WITHIN THE building. Maybe they were moving furniture, maybe they were tearing down walls: I had no way of telling. The noise continued for a day and a half and it began to sound like something more serious than sliding couches around. But for me, in my isolation, it was just one more day and a half of gluttony: fantastic sauces and creamy desserts and glittering wines. A culminating orgy of fantastic food, as it turned out. On the evening of the second day I got no dinner at all. The robots failed to show up, and the noise outside grew much louder. Now I was certain that something serious had to be going on.
My first inkling of the truth came when I heard footsteps in the hallway, the sound of running feet. Then shouts and alarums, a siren or two, the unmistakable hissing of imploder fire, the dull boom of heavier artillery. I put my ear to the door. There was fighting going on out there, yes, but who was fighting whom? I couldn't tell a thing. At first I thought that Polarca or Valerian had arrived with an army of Rom loyalists to overthrow Shandor and set me free. God save me from that. If I had wanted to push Shandor aside by force, I would have tried it long ago instead of going through this whole elaborate charade. Rom should not lift hands against Rom.
But if this was a Rom invasion, what was Julien de Gramont doing mixed up in it? Obviously it was Julien who had been preparing my meals these past weeks; no one else would have had the skill. Perhaps it was Julien who had opened the gates to let the invaders in. He and Polarca were well acquainted: old whorehouse buddies on many worlds, in fact. Had they concocted some sort of alliance? Why? They seemed like odd allies. Julien was sympathetic to all things Rom but essentially he was the creature of Lord Periandros. Polarca had no use for any of the lords of the Imperium.
I have never wished so profoundly that it could be possible to ghost forward in time as I did at that moment. Only five minutes, or maybe ten: just enough for me to find out what in the name of the Devil was going on in the house of power of the King of the Gypsies. But all I could do was stand with my ear to the door of my chamber and guess madly at ungodly alliances and conspiracies.
Then the door burst open and five armed troops in the pale green uniform of the Imperial Guard came rushing in.
They were native of Sidri Akrak. I saw that right away, in their blank emotionless Akraki eyes and their glum downturned Akraki mouths and the stiff-jointed tight-assed Akraki way that they moved. But in case those hints weren't enough, they were wearing splashy armbands emblazoned with the garis vertical stripes of the Akraki flag and a big scarlet monogrammed P. For Periandros, of course.
The officer in command-she had the epaulet of a phalangarius on her shoulder-strode up to me and said in that brusque flat way of theirs, "What is your name?"
"Yakoub." I smiled. "Rom baro. Rex Romaniorum." "Yakoub what?"
"King of the Romany people."
The five Akrakikan exchanged solemn glances. "You assert that you are the Rom king?"
"I do so assert, yea and verily."
"Is this so? Demonstrate your identity."
"I don't seem to have my papers with me. As a matter of fact, I happen to be a prisoner in this place. If you don't believe I am who I say I am, I suggest you call in any Rom you can find and ask him my name." r subordinates. "Find a Rom," The phalangarius gestured to one of he she said. "Bring him here. We will ask him this man's name."
I could still hear explosions in the distant reaches of the building. "While we're waiting," I said, "would you mind telling me who you are and what's happening around here?"
She gave me a sour look, as close to an expression as an Akraki is capable of mustering. She scarcely looked human to me. She didn't look, much like a woman, either, with that close-cropped hair of hers and her stiff Akraki movements. Only the barest hint of breasts beneath the uniform provided any clue to her sex. That she was human I would have to take on faith.