Читать книгу Rules of the Game - Джеймс Фрей, James Frey, Nils Johnson-Shelton - Страница 7

kepler 22b sits in a shiny chair in the center of a black, low-ceilinged room. His seven-fingered hands are woven together, his platinum hair bound into a perfect sphere perched on top of his head. He reviews the report he is about to give over the ansible to his conclave, many light years away. The game taking place on the blue-and-white planet in the next orbit has experienced hitches and unforeseen developments, but it progresses nonetheless. Most of what has transpired is not terribly worrying, with the notable exception of the destruction of one of Earth’s 12 great monuments. This was the one that belonged to the La Tène Celts, the one called Stonehenge, and it is now utterly gone and useless. kepler 22b is deeply disturbed by this. At least one of these ancient structures—ones that were erected many millennia ago, when his people walked alongside the young humans of Earth—at least one is required to finish Endgame.

And this, more than anything, is what he wishes to see happen.

For a Player to win.

A Player.

He turns his attention from the report to a transmission hologram projected into the air not far from his face. A dim real-time blip moves over the map of a city on the Indian subcontinent. A Player. Judging by the speed, he uses some kind of vehicle.

This Player is not the one that kepler 22b expects to win, but it is the one he has been most curious about.

He is a shrewd and incautious Player.

Unpredictable. Excitable. Merciless.

He is the Shang, An Liu.

And kepler 22b would continue to watch but then the ansible hums and the hologram flicks off and the room fills with pitch blackness and the temperature drops to -60 degrees Fahrenheit. Moments later the blackness pricks with drifting motes of light and the room glows bright and there they are, their projections surrounding him on all sides.

The conclave.

kepler 22b would prefer to watch the Shang, but he cannot.

It is time to give his report.