"Ellison-TowardTheLight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ellison Harlan)

hands that reached for the bodies that had once worn them. Faces without eyes.

I stood in the rubble of the most legendary structure in the history of my
people, and realized this had not been, in any way, a good idea. Sick to my
stomach, I started to thumb my wrist-cuff, to return now to the Project labs.

And I heard the scream.

And I turned my head.

And I saw the Kohane, who had been sent on ahead to assess the desecration -- a
son of Mattisyahu -- I saw him flung backward and pinned to the floor of dirt
and pig excrement, impaled by the spear of a Syrian pikeman who had been hiding
in the shadows. Deserter of the citadel's garrison, a coward hiding in the
shadows. And as he strode forward to finish the death of the writhing priest, I
charged, grabbed up one of the desecrated stones of the altar and, as he turned
to stare at me, frozen in an instant at the sight of this creature of light
bearing down on him . . . I raised the jagged rock and crushed his face to pulp.

Dying, the Kohane looked upon me with wonder. He murmured prayers and my suit of
lights shone in his eyes. I spoke to him in Greek, but he could not understand
me. And then in Latin, both formal and vulgate, but his whispered responses were
incomprehensible to me. I could not speak his language!

I tried Parthian, Samarian, Median, Cuthian, even Chaldean and Sumerian . . .
but he faded slowly, only staring up at me in dying wonder. Then I understood
one word of his lamentation, and I summoned up the hypnosleep learning that
applied. I spoke to him in Aramaic of the Hasmonean brotherhood. And I begged
him to tell me where the flasks of oil were kept.

But there were none. He had brought nothing with him, in advance of his priest
brothers and the return of Shimon from his battle with the citadel garrison.

It was a time of miracles, and I knew what to do.

I thumbed the readout on my wrist-cuff and watched as my light became a mere
pinpoint in his dying eyes.

I went back to Chicago. This was wrong, I knew this was wrong: timedrifters are
forbidden to alter the past. The three of us who were trained to go fugitive, we
understood above all else . . . change nothing, alter nothing, or risk a tainted
future. I knew what I was doing was wrong.

But, oh, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I went to Rosenbloom's, still in business on Devon Avenue, still in Rogers Park,
even this well into the 21st century. I had to buy some trustworthy oil.

I told the little balding clerk I wanted virgin olive oil so pure it could be
used in the holiest of ceremonies. He said, "How holy does it have to be for