"Foster, Alan Dean - Dream Done Green" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

And when a few interested humans applied for permission to emigrate there, they were turned back by the private patrol. For the Articles composed by the horse Pericles forbade the introduction of man to Old Earth. Those Articles were written in endurasteel, framed in paragraphs of molten duralloy. Neither human curiosity nor money could make a chip in them.
It was clear to judges and law machines that while the Articles (especially the phrase about "the meek finally inheriting the Earth") might not have been good manners or good taste, they were very good law.
It was finished.
It was secured.
It was given unto the mal till the end of time.
Casperdan and Pericles left the maze that was now Dream Enterprises and went to Old Earth. They came to stand on the same place where they'd stood decades before.
Now clean low surf grumbled and subsided on a beach of polished sand that was home to shellfish and worms and brittle stars..They stood on a field of low, waving green grass. In the distance a family of giraffe moved like sentient signal towers toward the horizon. The male saw them, swung its long neck in greeting. Pericles responded with a long, high whinny.
To their left, in the distance, the first mountains began. Not bare and empty now, but covered with a mat of thick evergreen crowned with new snow.
They breathed in the heady scent of fresh clover and distant honeysuckle.
"It's done," he said.
Casperdan nodded and began to remove her clothes. Someday she would bring a husband down here. She was the sole exception in the Articles. Her golden hair fell in waves to her waist. Someday, yes ... But for now...
"You know, Pericles, it really wasn't necessary. All this, I mean."
The stallion pawed at the thick loam underfoot.
"What percentage of dreams are necessary, Cas-
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WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE . ..
perdan? You know, for many mal intelligence was not a gift but a curse. It was always that way for man, too, but he had more time to grow into it. For the mal it came like lightning, as a shock. The mal are still tied to their past -- to this world. As I am still tied. Have you ever seen mal as happy as they are here?
"Certainly sentience came too quickly for the horse. According to the ancient texts we once had a special relationship with man that rivaled the dog's. That vanished millennia ago. The dog kept it, though, and so did the cat, and certain others. Other mal never missed it because they never had it. But the horse did, and couldn't cope with the knowledge of that loss that intelligence brought. There weren't many of us left, Casperdan.
"But we'll do well here. This is home. Man would feel it too, if he came here now. Feel it ... and ruin this world all over again. That's why I wrote the Articles."
She was clad only in shorts now and to her great surprise found she was trembling slightly. She hadn't done that since she was fifteen. How long ago was that? Good God, had she ever been fifteen? But her face and figure were those of a girl of twenty. Rejuvenation.
"Pericles, I want back what you promised. I want back what I had in the Meadows of Blood in the Ravaged Mountains."
"Of course," he replied, as though it had happened yesterday. A mal's sense of time is different from man's, and Pericles' was different from that of most mal.
"You know, I have a confession to make."
She was startled to see that the relentless dreamer was embarrassed!
"It was done only to bribe you, you know. But in truth ... in truth, I think I enjoyed it as much as you. And I'm ashamed, because I still don't understand why."
He kicked at the dirt.
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Dream Done Green
She smiled understandingly. "It's the old bonds you talk about, Per. I think they must work both ways."
She walked up to him and entwined her left hand in his mane, threw the other over his back. A pull and she was up. Her movement was done smoothly . . . she'd practiced it ten thousand times in her mind.
Both hands dug tightly into the silver-black mane. Leaning forward, she pressed her cheek against the cool neck and felt ropes of muscle taut beneath the skin. The anticipation was so painful it hurt to speak,
"I'm ready," she whispered breathlessly.
"So am I," he replied.
Then the horse Pericles gave her what few humans had had for millennia, what had been outlawed in the Declaration of Animal's Rights, what they'd shared in the Meadows of Blood a billion years ago.
Gave her back the small part of the dream that was hers.
Tail flying, hooves digging dirt, magnificent body moving effortlessly over the rolling hills and grass, the horse became brother to the wind as he and his rider thundered off toward the waiting mountains. . . .
And that's why there's confusion in the old records. Because they knew all about Casperdan in the finest detail, but all they knew about the horse Pericles was that he was a genius and a poet. Now, there's ample evidence as to his genius. But the inquisitive are puzzled when they search and find no record of his poetry.
Even if they knew, they wouldn't understand.
The poetry, you see, was when he moved.
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