"David Gerrold - The Flying Sorcerers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gerrold David)

The Flying Sorcerers -- David Gerrold and Larry Niven -- (1971)
(Version 2003.01.07)

Shoogar was on the warpath. The villagers wondered uneasily if they should
pack. The last time their protector had done this he had blown the whole
village to hell and they had all had to trek to find a new area. Still, he had
proved his point. Shoogar was indeed a mighty witch doctor -- and his flock
took a kind of resigned pride in his power. After all, who knew what the new
invader could do? Better the protector you know than the one you don't. Had
they but known the marvels and monstrosities that Shoogar in his rage would
bring about they would have fled shrieking. Which of course they did -for a
while. But Shoogar drew them back, for his power was great. And they didn't
really have any place else to go. No place, that is, that had as many
interesting possibilities as Shoogar's wild and woolly mind could conceive ...

Dedicated to the men of NASA;
We understand their problems

I WAS awakened by Pilg the Crier pounding excitedly on the wall of my nest and
crying, "Lant! Lant! It's happened! Come quickly!"
I stuck my head out. "What's happened?"
"The disaster! The disaster!" Pilg was jumping up and down in excitement. "I
told you it would happen."
I pulled my head in and dressed. Pilg's joy was a frightening thing. I felt my
fur rising, fluffing out in fear as I wondered...
Pilg the Crier had been predicting disaster for weeks -- as was his habit. He
predicted his disasters twice a year, at the times of the equinox. The fact
that we were leaving the influence of one sun and entering that of the other
would make the local spells completely unstable. As we approached conjunction
-- the time when the blue sun would cross the face of the red -- Pilg had
increased the intensity of his warnings. This was disaster weather: something
dire would certainly happen.
Usually it did, of course. Afterward -- and after we of the village had
somehow picked up the pieces -- Pilg would shake his heavy head and moan,
"Wait until next year. Wait. It'll be even worse."
Sometimes we joked about it, predicting the end of the world if Pilg's "next
year" ever arrived...
I lowered the ladder and joined Pilg on the ground. "What's the trouble?"
"Oh, I warned you, Lant. I warned you. Now maybe you'll believe me. I warned
you though -- you can't say I didn't warn you. The omens were there, written
across the sky. What more proof did you need?"
He meant the moons. They were starting to pile up on one side of the sky.
Shoogar the Magician had predicted that we were due for a time of total
darkness soon.- perhaps even tonight -- and Pilg had seized on this as just
one more omen of disaster.
As we hurried through the village I tried to get Pilg to tell me what had
happened. Had the river changed its course? Had someone's nest fallen from its
tree? Had the flocks all died mysteriously? But Pilg was so excited at having
finally been proven correct that he himself was not sure what exactly had
happened.