"Zach Hughes - The Book of Rack the Healer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Zach)

Healer whose venturesome soul was now confined to a body unable to
withstand the rigors of the outside. Ahead of him stretched a vast, empty
wilderness. He alone was living, moving through sterile spaces, the clouds
eddying about him, the sun filtering down. The sun was never visible as a
round source of heat as he knew it to be; it was now a glow, now only a
hint of color, a diffuse feeling under the hothouse clouds. But it heated the
rocks under his feet, which were not yet cooled by the movements of
winter air.
 He skirted a sinkhole, feeling the corrosive strength of its deadly air on
his scales. A small shower wet him and his scales crackled as acids sizzled
and boiled. The thick clouds in the sinkhole parted, giving him a dim view
of the rank growth on its floor, a tangled, pulpy mass. He picked his way
carefully, along the edge of the hole. A slip would have been fatal, for not
even his healing abilities, not even his tough protective scales, would have
saved him had he fallen in.

The land sloped gradually upward and the going became easier. He
walked with long, strong strides, the weight of his pack light on his back.

On the plains of glass the wind was a steady force in his face. Billowing
clouds moved overhead, but the heat of the smooth plain seemed to form a
pocket of fairly decent air immediately above it, so he breathed more
easily, not using his stored life.

He camped in the center of the plain, lying on the warm, glassy earth
with only a coverlet of the Material over him. He awoke with the first glow
of day, fed, strapped on his pack, and set off at a swift pace, eager to put
the plains behind him. His jogging pace ate up his reserves, but hopefully
there would be good air near the great river.

He could smell the river from afar and it urged him on. To his
disappointment a heavy accumulation of gases hung over it, hiding it from
his view until, pushing through the low growth of vegetation which lined
its banks, he stood with his feet in the water. He strained his eyes, trying
in vain to see the tall, broken rocks of the escarpment on the other side.

The water was clean, a pleasant contrast to the heaviness of the sea, in
which he spent his working hours. He waded in and felt the coolness
covering his scales, washing away the accumulated ash of corrosion. He
found a few inches of good air at the surface and gulped it, gills pumping
out wastes, then closed his outer lids and ducked under. He swam, his
natural buoyancy keeping him just below the surface. He opened his outer
lids to find that visibility was good, although there was nothing to see. The
river was, of course, lifeless. He walked the last short distance to the shore
on slippery rocks, then breathed air at the surface of the water before
starting his climb up the escarpment. The rift had been formed by an
age-old cataclysm which, for a period of a sun cycle, thrust the western
land up into a high plateau. He made the ascent slowly, examining the
exposed bones of the planet as he went.
 Halfway up, he was bemused by brown streaks which made erratic