"Philip Jose Farmer - Night of Light" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

that ecstasy, which is the understanding and perhaps even glimpse of—“
“Jesus Christ!” said Carmody. “Spare me, spare me! What must your parishioners
mutter under their breaths, what groans, every time you climb into the pulpit? God, or
What-ever-it-is, help them!
“Anyway, I don’t give a damn what the doctrine of the Church is. It’s very evident
that you yourself think that sex is dirty, even if it takes place within the permissible bonds
of matrimony. It’s disgusting, and the sooner the necessary evil is over and done with and
one can take a shower, the better.
“However, I’ve gotten way off the track, which is that to the Kareenans these
outbreaks of religio-sexual frenzy are manifestations of their gratitude to the Creator—I
mean Creatrix—for being given life and the joys of life. Normally, they behave quite
stuffily—“
“Look, Carmody, I don’t need a lecture from you; after all, I am an anthropologist, I
know perfectly well what the perverted outlook of these natives is, and—“
“Then why weren’t you down here studying them?” said Carmody, still chuckling.
“It’s your anthropological duty. Why send me down? Were you afraid you’d get
contaminated just watching? Or were you scared to death that you might get religion,
too?”
“Let’s drop the subject,” said Skelder, emotionlessly. “I don’t care to hear the
depraved details; I just want to know if you found out anything pertinent to our mission.”
Carmody had to smile at that word mission.
“Sure thing, Dad. The priestess said that the Goddess herself never appears except as a
force in the bodies of her worshipers. But she maintains, as did a lot of the laymen I
talked to, that the goddess’s son, Yess, exists in the flesh, that they have seen and even
talked to him. He will be in this city during the Sleep. The story is that he comes here
because it was here that he was born and died and raised again.”
“I know that,” said the monk, exasperatedly. “Well, we shall see when we confront
this imposter what he has to say. Ralloux is working on our recording equipment now so
it’ll be ready.”
“OK,” replied Carmody indifferently. “I’ll be home within half an hour, provided I
don’t run across any interesting females. I doubt it; this city is dead—almost literally so.”
He hung up the phone, smiling again at the look of intense disgust he could imagine
on Skelder’s face. The monk would be standing there for perhaps a minute in his black
robes, his eyes closed, his lips working in silent prayer for the lost soul of John Carmody,
then he would whirl and stalk upstairs to find Ralloux and tell him what had happened.
Ralloux, clad in the maroon robe of the Order of St Jairus, puffing on his pipe as he
worked upon the recorders, would listen without much comment, would express neither
disgust nor amusement over Carmody’s behavior, would then say that it was too bad that
they had to work with Carmody but that perhaps something good for Carmody, and for
them, too, might come out of it. In the meantime, as there was nothing they could do to
alter conditions on Dante’s Joy or change Carmody’s character, they might as well work
with what they had.
As a matter of fact, thought Carmody, Skelder detested his fellow-scientist and co-
religionist almost as much as he did Carmody. Ralloux belonged to an order that was
very much suspect in the eyes of Skelder’s older and far more conservative organization.
Moreover, Ralloux had declared himself to be in favor of the adoption of the Statement of
Historical Flexibility, or Evolution of Doctrine, the theory then being offered by certain
parties within the Church, and advocated by them as worthy of being made dogma. So
strong had the controversy become that the Church was held to be in danger of another
Great Schism, and some authorities held that the next twenty-five years would see