2023-01-19 03:57:34
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Corporation 44
The Bergelmir again shook with an impact, only a fan of tracers across the stern screens flashed. The unwritten rule of fire clashes in the Belt was the use of striking elements made of hardened ice - they would warm up for a couple of years in the cold local sun and finally evaporate into a vacuum. Anything is better than a civilian ore carrier getting an olive from depleted uranium in the frontal screen on a collision course. Double orbital is no joke to you, no armoplast of a strong hull can do it, with such kinetics, sprays fly in all directions, just have time to dodge. But today, you see, all sorts of rules have gone sideways.The alarm sounded at the very limit of audibility - the ears did not have time to return to normal after the pressure surge. Moving her jaw, Tsagaanbat, out of habit, listened to the answering crunch. The reverse block is the main trouble of any tracer. You can’t sit much in a hard shell, and soft cabin suits didn’t have time to equalize the pressure. Well
Corporation 45
Tsagaanbat began to mechanically look around in search of improvised means. Where can I get a banal jack a couple of ticks from the nearest garage?And most importantly, what was Hesperus thinking to himself when he gave the introduction? Idiot piece.Tsagaanbat was about to return to the capsule for a tool, when the battered servos started working. Phew, well, at least something went according to plan today!"Is it really that hard not to be late?"Shivikas. Commander, his mother so, Thomas Shivikas himself. This irritated tone of Tsagaanbat would not be confused with anything. Now it is clear why the stove did not open. Tsagaanbat was ahead."And you don't get sick."Well, you have to get into it. Just let Hesperus look in the eyes, she'll tell him everything!"What are you missing here, Commander?""I have the same question for you, Colonel."Judging by how awkwardly the former commander of the Frigg wriggled his boots, he himself was surprised by the meeting. Well, nice, if this i
Corporation 46
Today she was a strict mistress. Not according to plan, just according to the mood, so that the jetems do not relax. Sitting like this with a straight back on a sofa, half-turning, how are you there, do you watch, not looking up, do you crave her attention?They follow and crave what is there.She even like that, out of the corner of her eye, felt the growing tension on the other side of the virtreal. It was her talent, her little secret. Who cares how many slobbering mouths are now open at her thousands of kilometers away, all the other divas, for greater involvement, brought half a dozen omm to their studio to breathe in the back and portray subservience, enough for the mood. But all this palliative entourage was out of place for her - she always performed alone. And still I felt every drop of sweat and every bitten nail of the Jetems.Perhaps, another diva wouldn’t even need such a talent, what’s the point of why they need this knowledge, what exactly those who pay their bills see
Corporation 47
In attempts to explain to the stupid piece of iron, ten minutes passed. So, look, officer, she will now slowly (very slowly!) lower her left hand and take out an ID card from the pocket of her tights. No, the godless augmentation and other central pumps are not the imam. That's right, sectarian. Licensed. Everything is there, on the chip. Just don't shoot.And after all, he knows her as flaky, but all the same scoffs.And most importantly, the last anti-vaxxer south of Luavul was seen maybe a hundred years ago, even before the last pandemic of the green fungus, I also found something to hesitate.When the quacking and hooting flasher nevertheless drove off to the next threshold, to pester others, the good mood had already gone.She gave a short wave to the old fart with the binoculars in the opposite window - let him finally admire her nipples swaying under the transparent fabric of the raincoat - and slapped down the ruet, habitually springing and bouncing on the barely coping with p
Corporation 48
From the very morning the roosters roared, take it and get up. And behind them, of course, the ever-hungry master's dogs began to lie, also, I suppose, begging for food.Of course, the sun rises early over the mountains in Girkarvado, the local fishermen even earlier, so all the living creatures in the villages along the entire coast to the south of Maharashtra all year round, with a break for munsun, are used to getting up early at dawn, preventing longsteers from lying down - at least don't sleep at all.It’s really convenient - at night it drags coolness from the ocean, music comes from Russian beach, sit yourself in the virreal, while during the day it’s hot in the morning, there’s nothing to do on the street, and it’s quiet all around, only cows roam and buckets of nuts rumble around them.Frantisek usually lay down to sleep during the day, when you return in the morning from the beach, holding under your arm a pair of tails of mackerel freshly caught on a spinning rod for your m
Corporation 49
For greater understanding, he grabbed Mashka by the wrist and shook it properly.- Do you know anything about it?But she just shook her head in response.- No more than you. Silent in the net. No tremors reported, nothing."So that's why the dogs got mad?" Ah, never mind. We need to move away from the shore. If it's a wave, then... - Frantisek quickly climbed into the neti - near the shore it will move at a speed of up to a hundred. And she'll be here in ten minutes at the most. Hey! he waved his hands frantically, “get off the shore!” The wave is coming!The fishermen smiled and waved back, not understanding his cries.- And now what i can do?Frantisek angrily turned to Masha, you made this mess, you go ahead and command. But that one looked rather bewildered, as if she herself did not believe in her own perspicacity.- In theory, tsunamis - if this is it - are rarely higher than 10 meters. If anything, it is enough for us to climb to the top of the road to Mandrem and that's it, w
Corporation 50
From the very morning there was such stuffiness that you could not even leave the barracks. As soon as the relatively dry March ended, it began to pour here almost without interruption. If the clouds parted even a little, it became even worse - it was completely impossible for a person who was familiar only with the air-conditioned coolness of urban agglomerations to adapt to the forty-degree heat with one hundred percent humidity.However, in the end everyone got used to it. And mosquito squadrons trying to devour you at the slightest attempt to get out into the open. These bit directly, through half a centimeter of hebe, eating almost to the bone. And to the legendary African "shots" - a dray cocktail of vaccines against all sorts of rubbish that was found in local swamps - which it is not clear what they did more effectively, treated or crippled. In general, the local temperature and humidity were not the most formidable weapons against the stray gentleman who happened to be here b
Corporation 51
You stupid piece of iron, here he is watching with his own eyes how that same board continues to move further and further away from the designated corridor to the west, continuing to ignore Bogdan's warnings.The last effort to bring the incident to a peaceful end was to still try to contact the living personnel of Juba's control zeppelin. However, everything was useless, even if they answered in the end in a broken, but at least slightly conventional “Afro”, but they did not confirm the information, according to their information, there were no deviations from the course either.Rusu cut off the connection with a sigh. Well, he didn’t go crazy and he didn’t wonder. Having reconfigured the high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft to track the target, which was just crossing the territory of the Garamba National Park at a marching echelon of thirty kilometers, Bogdan immediately became convinced that here it was, the board, was heading straight for Yirol.In the control room of the flight
Latest Chapter
Epilogue
Deprived of the present - does not live, deprived of the past - was not even born. I don’t remember who said so, all these books merged into one mess for me during the flight. But, returning in my thoughts to my life on Earth, I cannot help but think about the Corporation, and I cannot help but think about the fate that brought me to the Corporation. The place where I grew up has long ceased to be a sleepy town far from the big and noisy world, the suburbs of the metropolis have moved in on it, comparing hills and raising faceless towers of cheap high-rise housing around. The black cubes of factory buildings, lined with light-absorbing tiles, seemed to be the focus of secrets in the dark and musty chaos of thousands of people who were not interested in anything; no one thought about it. I hardly remember when Corporations appeared in our lives. Sometimes I feel like they've always been there. The faceless masters of the world, at first they were somewhere far, far away. Not here. Per
82
The roof breathed a thick smell of hot metal, the sun was so hot that even the familiar tropics of the lower levels seemed like a resort from the coast of the Northern Ocean. In such places, in the middle of the realm of dusty iron and a web of wires creaking in the barely perceptible wind, a normal person will not linger. And if you remember the composition of the local air, full of carbon monoxide rather than oxygen, you involuntarily catch yourself thinking - why did you get here, run away from here, run ...There was little use for these thoughts. The introduction says clearly - the "patient" will try to break through here, and you should not worry about his plans, sweat between your shoulder blades and dry concrete crumb under your tongue. Whatever he is looking for here - he should not pass by. Neither alive nor already dead. If you do your job, you will head north, or even south, across the sea - it is dry there, there is no eternal smell of rivers rotting in the concrete bowel
81
The drowned city was empty again, and did not really have time to become a new home for immigrants from the Megapolis, which surrendered under the pressure of the Glacier. Until quite recently, life was in full swing here, shuttles took the last pax from the gravity well, heavy trucks delivered here and unfolded giant cubes of fabricators, but now everything was quiet, and only the quiet lapping of the waves of the Tethys Sea beat against the metal-polymer supports of the newly erected towers here.- Are you happy? she asked that day with what he thought was sincere curiosity.- Satisfied with what?“Because we leave this world alone.“Ah, that,” Romulus shrugged, “I will be pleased when they leave me alone. And Mother, she still does not hear us. She doesn't care what we think about her.- Stupid humanity tired even the all-powerful Romulus.- Don't bother with words. You have only lived with this for a quarter of a millennium, but I have been dealing with people for more than four h
80
Romulus climbed along the ridge with a measured step, from time to time looking back at the stone labyrinth of the Megapolis slowly plunging into the blue haze.Here, fifty kilometers from the edge of the Glacier, it looked quite familiar, if you do not remember how deep into the multi-year snow layers these stone skeletons now go. Towers, Bauhaus and palazzos sink deeper and deeper into the compressed ice pack every year. Go get it.Nothing, the fabricators have already reached the product capacity, releasing a million of their hardworking rats a day to the borders of the agglomeration.Romulus watched them work with his own eyes yesterday. Three individuals fiercely fought for a kilogram stub of monothread steel, zealously grinding their diamond cutters on it, only sparks flew around.These mechanical laborers will open any deposits of debris, make their way into the very hodgepodge of ceilings, dig their way into the depths of permafrost, but in the end they will wipe this abscess
79
We have seen a new humanity. People are weakened, divided, they will be even more crushed by the Age Outside, but sooner or later, one way or another, they will begin their expansion. But until that moment they cannot be left alone with Romulus. They need to be kicked in the ass into the Galaxy and locked up within the boundaries of the Barrier as much as possible.The guest thought, now for a long time. The clouds grew darker, the sunset faded, the snowflakes hit her cheek more and more painfully, and she stood still and was silent. Finally, when she spoke again, her voice was cold and formal.“I will speak to the soorn-infarh. But I don't promise anything.The redhead bowed again.“We couldn’t have hoped for more, wise one.” But I can see that something is bothering you.“Romulus confuses me. Will he fall into such a trivial trap?- Who knows who knows. Perhaps they themselves want to be deceived.The guest gave a short nod and moved away, through the oncoming gusts of a piercing no
78
The three from the chest were comfortably seated at the very edge of the cliff. One of them, a tall, desperately red-haired old man, waved his arms all the time, trying to jump up and run, in every possible way depicting general excitement. The other two, on the contrary, reclined comfortably in hammocks, pulling their blankets up to their chins, and hardly moved. A slight, but at the same time filled with internal contentment, a smile wandered on the face of both.All three would look very suspicious to an outsider's eye - what fate brought them to this windy land and what was the purpose of their today's observation, even the most desperate detective could not figure out, even if one happened so far south of Maharashtra.But in fact, there was no one here for a long time and reliably. The Goan land lay empty, and only the cold winter wind carried dust whirlwinds along these once populous lands, throwing handfuls of sand in the face of a random oncoming one.But these three were not
77
And what, it's even reasonable on their part. Less emotion, less stigma, less inevitable exophobia. It makes less sense to talk about something.Inside the makeshift conference room, to which the gateway led, already gathered, meanwhile, quite decently people. Apparently, their shuttle did not arrive first.It is necessary to get out somewhere far away to the side, very few people here would like to see him alive, let alone face to face. However, he was lucky, there was still a pleasant exception.- Companion Urban.— Ilmari Olsson.Both nodded briefly to each other, but not at all in the way that Lilia nodded to him when they met. Two intense gazes, clinging for a second in the surrounding crowd, managed to show each other enough emotions to immediately calmly part. Unlike the Companion of Ulysses, they always knew how to disperse peacefully with Urban. Of all the Companions, only Jean Armal still retained a certain amount of humanity. After all, only he knew what it was like to phys
76
The evacuated moon domes were far more depressing than he had expected. Live on Krasnaya for a couple of dozen turns, and you will no longer be surprised by its lifeless expanses. The lifestyle there was such that everyone seemed to be afraid of both this sand and each other. For a thousand sols you can not meet a single living soul, only chains of heavy copters stretching in the bloody skies remind that this world is inhabited by someone. But Muna... Muna in his memories was always a grandiose covered anthill, where everyone was in a hurry somewhere. The main staging post of the Sol system has remained the true heart of the Sol system since its inception.So it was before Ceres. And so it was before the Arrival.Now, looking at the empty galleries inside the domes and the cleared launch pads beyond, he only thought about what they had missed.What happened to the people who once set foot on the gray lunar regolith in the hope of developing a new frontier? The easiest way was to say t
75
The onboard observatory of the flagship, although it was focused on tracking objects located no further than a hundred kilometers from the Sun, nevertheless, gave a background image rich in details and colors, enriched with spectra outside the visible range from microwave to hard X-ray inclusive. The resulting composite panoramic banner only at first glance resembled the familiar picture of the starry sky - the former tracer did not need to be reminded of what deep space usually looks like to the naked eye. The white pupil of the distant Sun and the barely noticeable points of the brightest stars plus the planets, that's the whole poor visual range. Immediately at the disposal of the navigator, free from other activities, was given the multi-colored world of the contours of the Galaxy and entire star placers of the nearest cluster.When looking at this rich panel, made up of billions of stars, gas clouds, globular clusters and nebulae of the nearest galaxies, for once it became clear
