"Philip Jose Farmer - Riverworld 3 - The Dark Design" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

cockcrow.
Also, for some reason, dreams recurred more frequently than on the mother
planet. The actors of the nocturnal Theater of the Absurd insisted on return
engagements, performances which they, not the patrons, commanded. The
attendees
were powerless to jeer or applaud, to throw eggs and cabbages or walk out, to
chatter with their seatmates or doze.
Among this captive audience was Richard Francis Burton.
2


FOG, GREY AND SWIRLING, FORMED THE STAGE AND THE BACKDROP.
Burton stood in the pit like an Elizabethan too poor to afford a seat. Above
him
were thirteen figures, all in chairs which floated in the mist. One of them
faced the others, who were arranged in a semicir-cle. That man was the
protagonist-himself.
There was a fourteenth person mere, though it stood in the wings and could be
seen only by the Burton in the pit. It was a black, menacing shape which, now
and then, chuckled hollowly.
A not quite similar scene had happened before, once in reality and many times
in
dreams, though who could be sure which was which? There he was, the man who'd
died seven hundred and seventy times in a vain effort to elude his pursuers.
And
there sat the twelve who called themselves the Ethicals.
Six were men; six, women. Except for two, all had deeply tanned or heavily
pigmented skins and black or dark brown hair. The eyes of two men and a woman
had slight epicanthic folds, which made him think that they were Eurasians.
That
is, they were if they had originated on Earth.
Only two of the twelve had been named during the brief inquisi-tion-Loga and
Thanabur. Neither name seemed to be of any language he knew, and he knew at
least a hundred. However, languages change, and it was possible that they
might
be from the fifty-second century A.D. One of their agents had told them that
he
came from that time. But Spruce had been under threat of torture and might
have
been lying.
Loga was one of the few with comparatively pale skins. Since he was sitting
and
there was (and had been) nothing material to mea-sure him against, he could be
short or tall. His body was thick and muscular, and his chest was matted with
red hair. The hair on his head was fox-red. He had irregular and strong
features: a promi-nent, deeply clefted chin; a massive jaw; a large and
aquiline
nose; thick pale-yellow eyebrows; wide, full lips; and dark green eyes.
The other light-skinned man, Thanabur, was obviously the lead-er. His physique
and face were so much like Loga's that they could be brothers. His hair,