The Uplift War [antikvár]

PreludeHow strange, that such an insignificant little world should come to matter so much.Traffic roared amid the towers of Capital City, just beyond the sealed crystal dome of the officiai palanquin. But no sound penetrated to disturb the bureaucrat of Cost and Caution, who concentrated only on the holo-image of a small planet, turning slowly within reach of one down-covered arm. Blue seas and a jewel-bright spray of islands came into view as the bureaucrat watched, sparkling in the reflected glow of an out-of-view star.If I were one of the gods spoken of in wolfling legends . . . the bureaucrat imagined. Its pinions flexed. There was the feeling one had only to reach out with a talon and seize . . .But no. The absurd idea demonstrated that the bureaucrat had spent too much time studying the enemy. Crazy Terran concepts were infecting its mind.Two downy aides fluttered quietly nearby, preening the bureaucrat's feathers and bright tore for the appointment ahead. They were ignored. Aircars and floater barges darted aside and regimented lanes of traffic melted away before the bright beacon of the official vehicle. This was status normally accorded only royalty, but within the palanquin all went on unnoticed as the bureaucrat's heavy beak lowered toward the holo-image.Garth. So many times the victim.The outlines of brown continents and shallow blue seas lay partly smeared under pinwheel stormclouds, as decep-1