"Chalker, Jack L - Quintara 1 - The Demons at Rainbow Bridge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

The ship's computer was equally impressed intellectually, but did not carry the burden of having grown up in a sentient culture, acquiring along the way a bit of nerves about monsters and bogeymen.
"They are not quite identical, other than the obvious differences in the horn length and shape and the fact that the one on the left is a bit shorter and thinner," the computer noted clinically. "The briefs they are wearing make it impossible to tell for certain, but there is a possibility that they are a mated pair. Calm down, Cymak -- they are definitely embedded in the stuff and certainly not about to come to life."
The Xymanth, however his rational mind insisted that he'd simply happened on a major discovery, could not shake the feeling that he had instead intruded on a temple of the truly supernatural. The strangeness of the object, its less than solid nature, its bizarre shiftings, and now demons. . . .
Almost every race had such demons, and almost without exception they represented all that was truly evil and malevolent in the universe. This pattern also held true among the races of the Mizlaplan, as he well knew, even up to the Mizlaplan themselves, who had set themselves up as gods. Only the Mycohl regarded the ancient and apparently universal demon figure as an agency of good, but the Mycohl had always been perverse,
"This is a discovery of monumental proportions," the ship enthused. "For centuries we have looked for traces of the demon figures as early common visitors to the races of ancient days, but in vain. Now, here at last, is proof that they exist -- that demons are a real, unknown, perhaps very advanced race. We shall go down in the history books for this, Cymak!"
"Break it off," the Xymanth said with firmness. "Pull the probe out -- now."
"But I want to -- "
"Do as I say!"
"Very well," the ship responded with a very human sigh. "Get hold of yourself, though. You have traveled farther and seen more and fought more than any two others alive or dead. You can not allow yourself to be undone now by silly superstitions and psychological leftovers from your childhood."
"They are evil!" Cymak snapped. "Remember that! Almost universally they are the symbols of pure evil! And that, too, must have a reason, an origin in antiquity that has been passed down to us as a warning!"
"Evil is relative. Besides, the Mycohl consider them good."
"And what sort of society and values do the Mycohl represent? That evil should worship evil is hardly shocking. No, pack it up and get it ready for transmission without delay.''
"So you are not so frightened of two apparently dead ancient ones that you will not report it."
"I dare not ignore it. It is unlikely that we could destroy it or cover it up, and if I don't stake this planet, then a Mycohl scout or a Mizlaplanian group will stumble upon it. I just pray that those who come after to study this will not loose a horror upon us all that has been kept bound here for millennia. So, sound a recall and prepare the report. We will do no more work here ourselves."
"Very well. I would not worry so much, though. It is by now mere archaeology, mere objects of study. That pair is, long dead and preserved here as in a grave site. If we accept, as is generally agreed, that memories of demons among so many different races so far apart were caused by some ancient visitations, it must have been tens of thousands of years ago. No one except priests, psychics, and psychotics has seen a demon in the flesh since then."
"It is not a grave site," Cymak responded firmly. "Graves are sealed among those who use them. They are not maintained in chambers of an unknown technology still active and responsive to visitors. And ten thousand years ago this was a far different place -- certainly geologically, and probably climatologically as well. Our figures show a minor ice age in between. Yet there it sits, still active, still working, with its terrible inhabitants frozen there, not buried in rock or overgrown by vegetation, its door open in full operational condition. That thing is alive, at least as much as you yourself are alive, and perhaps more so. Still alive, still active, still functional, and smart enough to keep from being buried or embedded or undercut or overgrown through the centuries. I fear this is a discovery I will rue until my death."
"Perhaps. It will certainly shake things up, anyway. All is prepared and organized. Do you wish to review it before I transmit?"
"No, I know what a good job you do. Send it, but append this from me. Say, 'I, Cymak, Scout of the Exchange, send you evil from Rainbow Bridge.' Say -- say, 'Here be demons!"

BOOK I:
EXCHANGE: THE BLUE TEAM
Soap Opera for Spacers
JONAH AND THE WORM


The Erotics had zeroed in on him now, but while he'd watched their dancing with enthusiasm and wondered once again what it must feel like to have a tail like that, he wasn't at all interested in the follow-up.
One of them, maybe senior, nosed out the rest and headed over toward him with all the sass and sexy moves she had. She had all of them. He watched her come, resigned, and drained the last of his drink. No loss there; in a place where everybody was drinking and popping all the wrong stuff, he was limited to fruit juice.
Up close, she was no less erotic but far less human; what seemed almost a stage costume from afar took on a far different cast when you could see that it was no costume but truly her. In the capital of the central world of an empire encompassing hundreds of races spawned by incredibly divergent evolutionary forces, she nonetheless seemed artificial, unreal, like some kind of animated stage prop created by some bizarre artist.
Which, in a way, was just what she was.
She was almost as tall as he was, taller with that thick mane of hair rising from her head and sweeping behind, although he was, to be sure, rather short and thin himself. Her skin was light brown, her face and torso out of some adolescent male's fantasies, the eyes unnaturally large, the lips too thick and sensuous, the face and form perfect, the breasts ridiculously oversized and far too large to be as firm as they were, the nipples ever erect.
The brows, however, were thin and angled upwards; the blush and eye shadow were not cosmetic but part of her, and above the outer edge of each eye, about midway between the eye and the hairline, were tiny, perfectly rounded short horns.
She had no navel; about where the navel should have been was a covering of short, incredibly soft darker brown hair that went down to her feet. Her hips were a bit odd-shaped and supported two thick legs that were somehow both equine and sexy, ending not in human feet but in two graceful hooves. From the small of her back trailed a magnificent golden tail of the sort that he'd seen on show horses when he was a kid back on his native world; her hair spilled down her back in the same color and style.
She slid up to him. "Hey, bad boy -- want a feelie?"
He looked at her. Only something beyond the painted eyes, deep inside her, revealed her hardness, her many years at this trade, and her sense of entrapment in it.
"Nothing tonight, luv," he responded. "Just here for the scenery and the atmosphere, nothin' more. Maybe some other time."
She'd been around too long to take that as a final brushoff. "Aw, c'mon, big man. You got needs and I can fill 'em."
'"Shove off!" he said in such a tone that she actually took a step back. Coldly, but less threatening, he added, "You with all your years got no idea of my needs. Go find a paying customer and get happy."
She stared at him. "You a guv or som'thin'?"
He tolerated the question because he knew it was a natural comment. "I ain't no guy, girl, not by a hoop. I want less truckin' with them than you do. I just don't want no tumble tonight."
Her brow furrowed in puzzlement. "Then why in hell'd you come in here!"
He felt sudden anger and stood up quickly, almost knocking the stool over. "I don't have to explain nothin' to nobody, least of all a long-tailed piece of ass." He walked briskly by her and out the door and into the street.
He walked about a block in the crowded district before his anger cooled. He'd been out of line there and he knew it, but what the hell could he say or do? She was just doing her job, the only job she could do, the job she'd been designed to do in some genetics lab. Hell, why had he gone in there, anyway, knowing the scene was inevitable?
Why, indeed, come down here at all? The tourists, the business people, the crews on leave, the conventioneers and politicians -- these were the mobs in this gaudy district. He looked around. People, people everywhere, and he was the only damned human in sight.
Maybe that was it. Maybe he'd gone to the only place where he could be certain there would be other human company, no matter what the type and no matter that, down here, those from human stock weren't exactly creations of nature. You could be close, closer than relatives, closer than Wood brothers, to a half dozen creatures who were so different from you that you had little in common except the job, and find them the best friends and mates you could ever imagine, but every once in a while you just felt like you had to be with your own kind, no matter who or what they were.
He took the cross-town tube and headed back for the hotel. He felt depressed and mad at himself, and somehow cut off not just from his own kind but from any kind.
That was the problem, really. Not that he was cut off from his own kind by any barriers or occupation but that he was the one who was different. The others in the glit, they were human, and he had less kinship with them than with the Erotic, Maybe that was why he'd gotten so mad at her. That sense of her entrapment; a mind inside there that was maybe curious or smart or ambitious but that couldn't really do much about it. With that body, those urges, the built-in genetic compulsions, she might be bored and hate the whole life but she could literally do or be nothing else.
Somebody else had made that decision for her at her conception, within some computer-controlled bio lab that created endless themes and variations of her to fill an age-old market demand. It wasn't bad enough to have a thousand races to keep track of; there were endless variations of them as well.
He hadn't been like that. He'd been born in the normal manner from material supplied randomly by two parents, even though he never knew who one of them was. Born poor and raised in the filth of an interplanetary backwater, but he'd been smart and he'd had ambition. The Erotic might be smart and have ambitions, too, but she was trapped from birth and she knew it.
He, now, was different; He'd trapped himself. He'd sold his soul for his ambitions, his dreams, and now that he had them they were hollow, for he couldn't enjoy his fruits. When you're poor and without much hope you don't look too hard for the devil's fine print.
Inside his room he relaxed, then removed his clothes. When his back was bared, there was a small furry ball down at the base of the spine, a ball that unrolled slowly and began to gradually inch its way up his back and toward his shoulder. It resembled nothing so much as a large slug, but covered with fine, thick baby-blue and snow-white hair. He sat on the side of the bed, letting it climb all the way up.