"Frank Herbert - The Godmakers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

"The god comes anew each time out of chaos," the Abbod said. "We do not
control this; we only know how to make a god."

He felt the dry electricity of fear building in his mouth, recognized the
necessary tension growing around him. The god must come partly out of fear,
but not alone from fear.
"We must stand in awe of our creation," he said. "We must be ready to adore,
to obey, to plead and supplicate."

The acolytes knew their cue. "Adore and obey," they murmured. Awe radiated
from them.

Ah, yes, the Abbod thought; infinite possibilities and infinite peril, that is
where we now stand. The fabric of our universe is woven into these moments.

He said: "First, we call into being the demishape, the agent of the god we
would create." He lifted his arms, breaking the force flow between the two
walls, setting eddies adrift in the room. As he moved, he felt a
simultaneity, a time-rift in his universe with the image-awareness within him
that told of three things happening together. A vision of his own brother, Ag
Emolirdo, came into his mind, a long-nosed, birdlike human standing in pale
light on faraway Marak, sobbing without cause. This vision flowed into the
image of a hand, one finger depressing a button on a small green box. In the
same instant, he saw himself standing with arms upraised as a Shriggar, the
Chargonian death lizard, stepped from the Psi wall behind him.

The acolytes gasped.

With the exquisite slowness of terror, the Abbod lowered his arms, turned.
Yes, it was a true Shriggar -- a creature so tall it must crouch in this room.
Great scratching talons drooped from its short arms. The narrow head with its
hooked beak open to reveal a forked tongue twisted left, then right. Its
stalk eyes wriggled and its breath filled the room with swamp odors.

Abruptly, the mouth snapped closed: "Chunk!"

When it reopened, a voice issued from it: deep, disembodied, articulated
without synchronization of Shriggar tongue and lips. It said:

"The god you make may die aborning. Such things take their own time and their
own way. I stand watchful and ready. There will be a game of war, a city of
glass where creatures of high potential make their lives. There will be a
time for politics and a time for priests to fear the consequences of their
daring. All of this must be to achieve an unknown goal."

Slowly, the shriggar began to dissolve -- first the head, then the great
yellow-scaled body. A puddle of warm brown fluid formed where it had stood,
oozed across the room, around the Abbod's feet, around the seated acolytes.

None of them dared move. They knew better than to introduce a random force of