"Anderson, Poul - Genesis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Poul)

Arkezhan smiled. "Why, I meant no harm, my lord, no basic fault to find. We are what we are. That boy has evidently chosen to do little or nothing about the characteristics he has inherited from, say, his mother."
Wei stepped forward. He doubled his fist and struck. Arkezhan staggered back. The stewards gasped. As if it too had seen, the crowd howled.
Arkezhan recovered his stance. Blood trickled from his nose. He grinned.

4


The lands for which Clan Belov was responsible lay near the northern border of Tahalla. Beyond it continued the same Arabiyah, hills and valleys where the wind sent waves across tall grass, tossed fronds and soughed through leaves, where streams flowed into shining lakes, where great herds and their predators bounded and a flying flock often cast a shadow like a cloud's-but the folk of Zayan had ways very different from the ways of Tahalla. So did all folk everywhere on Earth, and from each other.
Wei set his car down at the foot of a hill and climbed to the top.
As he mounted he saw more and more widely. In the distance giraffes mingled with lyrehorns and a few cheirosaurs, ignoring a pride of lions stretched sleepy on a ridge. Impulsively, meaninglessly, he waved at them. Though the reintroduction of rare species, the rebirthing of many that had gone extinct, and creation of others that never evolved happened before his lifetime, he had experienced it so often in virtuality that he felt as if he had been there, helping- as if he had even played some part, however humanly insignificant, in staving off the Ice. It gave depth and passion to the day-by-day ecological management that was his main reality occupation.
He had found a lonely place. An unobtrusive upthrust on the western horizon was the dome of a food production center, purely robotic. Smoke rose, thin and quickly scattered, from a swale kilometers off, an excursionist campfire, but that belonged, recalling a Stone Age his race had forgotten but his genes had not.
His muscles tautened, flexed, and tautened again, bearing him upward against gravity. Sunlight fell warm on his face, air passed warm through his nostrils. Earth bore no medicine for shame and grief, and he would not smother them together with his honor in drugs, but Earth itself was a balm.
He had chosen this hill because a eucalyptus grove stood on the crest, a screen across heaven. Should a survey satellite chance to pass overhead, he didn't want it making any record of these next moments. The shade fell cool and dappled, pungencies swirled, leaves seemed to whisper his farewells for him.
He had said none when he left home today, only that he wanted to get away for a while. "I understand," his lady answered. He suspected that she understood all too well, and her calm was her last gift.
I'm sorry, Lissa, Mikel, he thought. There is no better way to regain our pride. Is there? May you live gladly.
He drew his pistol. The single round in it was not a stun cartridge. Revival would be out of the question.
Carefully, he brought the muzzle to his temple. A cold kiss, he thought. Then: Don't linger.
The shot crashed. A vulture high overhead started down in long, slow spirals.

5


Sesil Hance occupied a house on the outskirts of Roumek, an ornate thing of columned pillars and slender turrets, intended for a family larger than any nowadays but easily and variably adaptable for entertaining. Windows threw a soft glow into the night. Music played low, a piece the house had lately composed. From thirty meters away, its nearest neighbor joined in. Otherwise the street lay quiet, empty except for a gardener robot at work in the flower strips.
The main door knew Mikel Belov and retracted for him. He stepped into an anteroom of mahogany panels, nacre ceiling, and live carpet. Two figures appeared in full-size holography, an older man and woman. Propriety forbade a clan maiden to receive male visitors alone. Sesil's parents preferred their rural estate. They had had these virtuals of themselves prepared for her, to speak and act as they would and record whatever the sensors observed. She had told him they trusted her and never retrieved the data. It was simply a matter of maintaining repute.
He saluted. "Greeting, Mikel Belov," said the likeness of Yusuf Hance formally, and, equally formally, "Be welcome" the likeness of Fiora Hance.
"I thank you, my lord and lady," he replied. Sesil came through an inner archway. A black gown over which star-points twinkled clung to her. She stopped. A hand went to her mouth. "Oh," she breathed. Her eyes widened, as luminously dark as the fabric. "You. I hoped so much-Come, please come." To the images: "By your leave." She turned and led her visitor out, down a hall to a room where odors of jasmine drifted and colors played subtly through the walls. Though she turned back toward him, she made no move to join hands or to touch at all. "Please rest, my lord." She made a ragged gesture at a lounger. "May I summon refreshment?"
He kept his feet. "You have not called me lord for more than a year," he said. They had been close to betrothal. He stopped himself from adding "my lady."
Her glance dropped. How long the lashes were on that delicate countenance. "No. It's only-now-the tragedy befallen you-and now you will be Captain Belov."
"If they elect me. That must wait a while." Pain broke through. "Sesil, why haven't I heard from you?"
She gestured at the holo cabinet. It came alight with the simulacra of her parents. She had seldom done that before-no impoliteness, for the realities would have left the young couple to themselves. Did she want help? Mikel repeated his question. "You know why, my lord," pseudo-Yusuf told him. Sesil's fingers twisted together. "I, I would have," she stammered, "I wanted to, I wanted to, but-" She could not go on.
He finished for her. "But my father had done a deed of violence upon a fellow officer, and in the very Presence. His whole clan was in dishonor."
"That was so unjust!" she cried.
Mikel addressed the images. "You"-he meant the realities- "would not thereafter deal with a Belov."
Yusuf's voice answered slowly: "We could not very well, could we?"
"Be honest, dear," said Flora's. Analogue tears glimmered. "We dared not."
Yes, Mikel thought, too many other Hances would feel you had tainted them also. "I quite understand, my lord and lady," he said. "For my part, I had no wish to put you in a difficult position."
Sesil raised her head and squared her frail shoulders. "But your honor is made clean again," she said. The steadiness failed. "I hoped-I hoped-" She swallowed. "Yes, I wept for you, for him, but now-"
Mikel nodded. "Well, I might have come sooner." He did not patronize with an apology. "My mother and I have been busy."
"Of course." He barely heard Sesil. "And I, I didn't want to ... break in. I waited. Now you are here." She half reached for him.
Yusuf's voice intervened. Her arms dropped. "With respect, my lord, that was a dreadful means of setting matters right. He could have gone into exile."
Mikel's fists clenched at his sides. "And drag through life among aliens, a friendless, helpless outsider?"
"Communication-telepresence-"
"That would have made it worse. We would have lived with the daily knowledge of his condition. No, my father made what he believed was a clean and final ending."
Pseudo-Yusuf overlooked the rude interruption and replied mildly. "He has made total atonement. Thereby we can resume."
Flora's voice: "We too will pay him honors, by name, at every
Remembrance."
Mikel shook his head. "As you like, my lady, and thank you for your generosity. But this is not yet done with. I do not accept that my father owed any atonement." He looked back at Sesil. "I came to bid you goodbye."
She shuddered. "What?"
"My father acted under intolerable provocation. Witnesses agree. The Regnant surely recognized this. He should have spoken it forth, railed my father fully justified, pardoned the breach of Radiant dignity, and reprimanded Arkezhan Socorro. He did not." "What do you mean?" Sesil swallowed. "To do?" "The Regnant shall proclaim the justification and the pardon, and lay the dishonor where it belongs," Mikel stated.
The face of Yusuf went expressionless. "How do you propose to accomplish this?" the voice murmured.