[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]Rovaki's outer office, he had heard the newscaster saying something about a
new school being opened.
Dusk was deepening into
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html night as a low, sprawling, palisaded
building that could only be the caravanserai came into view ahead.
Harry asked one of the train crew. "Do we get a break from the breakdown zone
here?"
"Not much of one, I'm afraid. There are a few square meters of free zone near
the center of the building, but they're taken up almost entirely
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html by a compact food-and-
drink recycler and a public telegraph station."
Harry, for whatever reason, had been expecting the overnight accommodation to
be a small, crude structure.
But its single story, the outer wall a palisade of imported logs, sprawled
over half a hectare or so of ground.
The walls were twice as
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html high as a man, and appeared to have
been fashioned from the same imported material logs
as the telegraph poles.
This gave the place the look of some ancient stockade, an effect spoiled by
the numerous broad, low windows that had been cut in the walls, openings
defended only by ornamental metal grillwork. Several doorways were broad
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html and undefended, too.
But then, who was going to attack?
The caravan stopped some twenty meters from the building, at just a little
distance off the road.
The place seemed large enough to house all the passengers and crew of a large
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caravan in reasonable comfort, but word was that tonight all
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html the sleeping rooms were going to be
taken.
Harry noted that the telegraph cable went right in through a small hole in one
rugged wall, to come out again on the far side of the building, and run into
the distance beside the road.
Harry and his two traveling companions paused, a little way outside the
compound,
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html to watch the last bright glow of
sunset well, something vaguely like a sunset, Harry thought, a streakiness of
light, and changing colors.
"This is the first time,"
Lily said softly, "I've ever seen a sunset without a sun."
Leaving his companions behind for a time, Harry went scouting on his own,
stretching his legs.
Ordinarily he might have
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html gone wandering off alone into the
Maracandan back country, which was perfectly safe, by all accounts, as long as
you didn't stay lost for so long that you died of thirst, and you didn't fall
into one of the rare subduction zones, where the surface of the world was
slowly drawn underground, to be eventually produced again somewhere else.
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html
But right now he stayed in sight of the building, wanting to keep an eye on
Kul as much as possible and on Lily
Gunnlod as well.
A large common room, lighted pleasantly by thick candles and brightened by the
many mirrors on its walls, formed part of the interior of the caravanserai.
One side
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html of this space did duty as a kind of
general store, with two clerks behind a counter conducting business cash only,
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