Ben Bova - Orion Among the Stars
Here you can read online Ben Bova - Orion Among the Stars full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. genre: Detective and thriller. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:
Romance novel
Science fiction
Adventure
Detective
Science
History
Home and family
Prose
Art
Politics
Computer
Non-fiction
Religion
Business
Children
Humor
Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.
- Book:Orion Among the Stars
- Author:
- Genre:
- Rating:4 / 5
- Favourites:Add to favourites
- Your mark:
Orion Among the Stars: summary, description and annotation
We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Orion Among the Stars" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.
Ben Bova: author's other books
Who wrote Orion Among the Stars? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Orion Among the Stars — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work
Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Orion Among the Stars" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.
Light
Font size:
↓
↑
Reset
Interval:
↓
↑
Bookmark:
Make
Annotation
More than human and less that a god, John ORyan is Orion, made by the Creators who rule outside of time. His purpose is to do their bidding. Now, Orion has becomee a key piece in a cosmic game between two of the CreatorsAnya, the goddess he loves, and Aten, the god who toys with his destiny.
Orion Among the Stars
by Ben Bova
Yes, makin mock o uniforms that guard you while you sleepby Ben Bova
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an theyre starvation cheap
For its Tommy this, an Tommy that, an Chuck him out, the brute!
But its Saviour of is country, when the guns begin to shoot
Rudyard Kipling Tommy
To Paul Spencer, Tommy Atkins, and all their cousins.
Prologue
This time death was like being in the center of a whirlpool, inside the heart of a roaring tornado. The universe spun madly, time and space whirling into a dizzying blur, planets and stars and atoms and electrons racing in wild orbits with me in the middle of it all, falling, falling endlessly into a cryogenically cold oblivion.
Gradually all sensation left me. It might have taken moments or millennia, I had no way to gauge time, but all feeling of motion and cold seeped away from me, as if I were being numbed, frozen, turned into an immobile, insensate block of ice.
Still my mind continued to function. I knew I was being translated across space-time, from one cusp of the continuum to another. Yet for all I could see or touch or hear, I was in total oblivion. For a measureless tune I almost felt glad to be free of the wheel of life at last, beyond pain, beyond desire, beyond the agonizing duty that the Creators forced upon me.
Beyond love.
That stirred me. Somewhere in the vast reaches of space-time Anya was struggling against forces that I could not even comprehend, in danger despite her godlike powers, facing enemies that frightened even the Golden One and the other Creators.
I reached out with my mind, seeking to penetrate the blank darkness that engulfed me. Nothing. It was as if there was no universe, no continuum, neither time nor space. But I knew that somewhere, sometime, she existed. She had loved me as I had loved her. Nothing in all the universes of existence would keep us apart.
A glimmer of light. So fault and distant that at first I thought it might be merely my imagination obeying my desire. But yes, it truly was there. A faintest, faintest glow. Light. Warmth.
Whether I moved to it or it moved to me mattered not at all to me. The glow grew and brightened until I seemed to be hurtling toward it like a chip thrown into a furnace, like a meteor drawn to a star. The light blazed like the sun now and I threw my arms across my eyes to ease the pain, delighted that I had eyes and arms and could feel again.
Orion, came a voice from that blinding, overpowering radiance. You have returned.
It was Aten, of course, the Golden One. He resolved his presence into human form, a powerful godlike figure with a thick golden mane, robed in shimmering gold, almost too bright for me to look upon.
He stood before me in an utterly barren landscape that stretched toward infinity in every direction. A featureless plain of billowing mist that played about our ankles, an empty bowl of sky above us the color of hammered copper.
Where is Anya? I asked.
Far from here.
I must go to her. She is in great danger.
So are we all, Orion.
I dont care about you or the others. It is Anya I care for.
A faint hint of a smirk curled the corners of his lips. What you care or dont care about is inconsequential, Orion. I created you to do my bidding.
I want to be with Anya.
Impossible. There are other tasks for you to perform, creature.
I stared into his golden eyes and knew that he had the power to send me where he chose. But I had powers, too, powers that were growing and strengthening.
I will find her, I said.
He laughed scornfully. But I knew that whatever he did, wherever he sent me, I would seek the woman I loved, the goddess who loved me. And I would not cease until I found her.
Chapter 1
I found myself confined in a featureless gray enclosure, the curving wall of a smooth plastic cocoon so close upon me that I could not lift my head without bumping it. I lay on my back, disoriented, blinking eyes that felt gummy with sleep. My arms were pressed close to my sides; there was scant room for me to move them. But I edged one hand along the curving wall of my chamber. It felt blood-warm. Yet I was chilled, as cold inside as a frozen corpse.
I could remember dying, more than once. I recalled freezing to death in a frigid landscape of snow and ice and bitter, merciless winds. The numbness of the cold had been a mercy then; my body had been torn to bloody ribbons by a cave bear.
A mechanical click snapped me to the here and now. I heard a soft beeping sound, strangely annoying. Then the curved plastic cover abruptly swung open. Immediately a chill white mist enveloped me. I shivered and tried to sit up. It took an effort.
Propping myself on one elbow, I squinted through the icy mist. I was in a large room. Featureless gray walls. Low ceiling that glowed with cold bluish light. The floor was lined with large objects that looked to me like coffins. Dozens of them, a hundred, perhaps. And that irritating beeping sound, soft yet insistent, like a worry gnawing at the back of your mind. One at a time, and then in twos and threes, the lids of the coffinlike capsules swung back with soft sighing sounds, like the slightest of breezes wafting through the nodding limbs of a forest. Cold whitish mist drifted up from each of them. The beeping stopped when the last of them opened.
Men and women began pulling themselves up to sitting positions, rubbing their eyes, stretching their arms, looking around the room. I could see that they were young, slim, physically fit. They looked so much like each other that they could have been brothers and sisters. At first I thought they were siblings from two or three families. They wore nothing at all. Completely naked, men and women alike. Just as I was.
The room suddenly jolted sideways, as if some giant hand had slammed it. A dull, distant boom reverberated through the mist-filled air. I almost fell off my bier. Several people gasped or yelled out in surprise. An earthquake? No. Only that one shock.
I swung my legs to the floor and stood up, tentatively, testing my strength, keeping a grip on the edge of the coffin or sarcophagus or whatever it was. A cryonic sleep capsule, I realized, not knowing how I knew. That is what it was. The room was crammed with row upon row of cryonic sleep capsules. The men and women in here with me had just been awakened from death. Or the next thing to it.
Who is in charge of this squad?
I turned toward the challenging, impatient voice. And stiffened with sudden fear and hatred. Standing in the hatch was a reptilian, a bipedal lizard decked in green and gray scales, insignia painted on its chest and shoulders, an equipment web strapped around its torso, the stub of a rudimentary tail visible between its legs. It was only about shoulder-high to me, not yet fully grown.
One of Sets offspring! Every nerve in me burned with hatred, every muscle tensed for battle. But I had killed Set long ago, in the howling agony that took him and his whole brood of reptilian invaders. And he had killed me. I remembered dying then, back in the age when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and the Suns dwarf companion star had not yet been crushed down to the planet Jupiter.
And this reptile was different. Its face was more lizard-like, with a snout full of teeth and a single bony crest atop its skull. The eyes were mere slits, glittering like a snakes, but they were set forward and scanned us with intelligent scorn.
Light
Font size:
↓
↑
Reset
Interval:
↓
↑
Bookmark:
Make
Similar books «Orion Among the Stars»
Look at similar books to Orion Among the Stars. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Reviews about «Orion Among the Stars»
Discussion, reviews of the book Orion Among the Stars and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.