Centuries, without outside help, the histories in Dataset claimed. What I wouldn't give for a dayaround aboard her! Yet this ship was being chased by something mightier. Scrupilo shivered in the summer sun. He had often enough heard Pilgrim's story of the first landing, and he had seen the human's beam weapon. He had read much in Dataset about planet-wrecker bombs and the other weapons of the Beyond. While he worked on Woodcarver's cannon -- the best weapons he could bring to be -- he had dreamed and wondered. Until he saw the starship floating above, he had never quite felt the reality in his innermost hearts. Now he did. So a fleet of killers lay close behind Ravna Bergsndot. The hours of the world might be few indeed. He tabbed quickly through Dataset's search paths, looking for articles about space piloting. If there be only hours, at least learn what there is time to learn. So Scrupilo was lost in the sound and vision of Dataset. He had three windows open, each on a different aspect of the piloting experience. Loud shouts from the hillside. He looked up with one head, more irritated than anything else. It wasn't a battle alarm they were calling, just a general unease. Strange, the afternoon air seemed pleasantly cool. Two of him looked high, but there was no haze. "Scrupilo! Look, Look!" His gunners were dancing in panic. They were pointing at the sky ... at the sun. He folded the pink covers over Dataset's face, at the same time looking sunward with shaded view. The sun was still high in the south, dazzling bright. Yet the air was cool, and the birds were making the cooing sounds of low-sun nesting. And suddenly he realized that he was looking straight at the sun's disk, had been for five seconds -- without pain or even watering of his eyes. And there was still no haze that he could see. An inner chill spread across his mind. The sunlight was fading. He could see black dots on its disk. Sunspots. He had seen them often enough with Scriber's telescopes. But that had been through heavy filters. Something stood between him and the sun,
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kisumu 2 mbt, something that sucked away its light and warmth. The packs on the hillside moaned. It was a frightened sound Scrupilo had never heard in battle, the sound of someone confronted by unknowable terror. Blue faded from the sky. The air was suddenly cold as deep dark night. And the sun's color was a gray luminescence,
复件 (26) air max, like a faded moon. Less. Scrupilo hunkered bellies to ground. Some of him was whistling deep in the throat. Weapons, weapons. But Dataset never spoke of this. The stars were the brightest light on the hillside. "Pham, Pham. They'll be here in an hour. What have you done?" A miracle,
复件 (82) air max, but of ill? Pham Nuwen swayed in Countermeasure's bright embrace. His voice was almost normal, the godshatter receding. "What have I done? Not much. And more than any Power. Even Old One only guessed, Ravna. The thing the Straumers brought here is the Rider Myth. We -- I, it -- just moved the Zone boundary back. A local change,
复件 (26) air max, but intense. We're in the equivalent of the High Beyond now, maybe even the Low Transcend locally. That's why the Blighter fleet can move so fast." "But --" Pilgrim was back from the hatch. He interrupted Ravna's incoherent panic with a matter-of-fact, "The sun just went out." His heads bobbed in an expression she couldn't fathom. Pham answered,
复件 (29) air max, "That's temporary. Something has to power this maneuver." "W-why, Pham?" Even if the Blight was sure to win, why help it? The man's face went blank, Pham Nuwen almost disappearing behind the other programs at work in his mind.