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

the valleys. Then even one so fragile as Deepsoft could bask outside in the
glow of the filtered sun. Life would go on under the high clouds of
summer. The new joining on the eastern sea would produce—what?
Hopefully, a Far Seer. Or, perhaps, just perhaps, the long awaited New
One.

That wish, Red Earth knew, was pure indulgence. Nature and nature
alone could anticipate the need for a New One. He, in his limited wisdom,
could not dare to imagine the needs dictated by the planet. Still he allowed
himself to wonder about the New One. Would he be able to eat the
poisonous leafy things? Breathe the toxic vapors? Be warmed rather than
damaged by the projectiles shot down through the perpetual haze by the
sun? Only nature would know. But when the New One came, as he
inevitably would, then the Far Seers, the Keepers, the Power Givers, and
the Healers and all the rest would be the Old Ones and life would continue
despite the giant flares of the sun that tried their worst to return the
planet to primordial emptiness.

It was a comfort to believe. Red Earth turned back to his tasks. He
recorded the rise of the planet's satellite to the east, his sense bouncing
there and back with a noticeable lag. He felt the solidity there and tested
the depth of the craters. He searched, unsuccessfully of course, for
breathable air, life-giving water, and symbiotic Breathers on the satellite.
Then he turned to the sister worlds circling the sun, other planets unseen
by any save the Far Seers, sensing, measuring, recording.

For his records, Red Earth sent the information he had gleaned into the
vast storehouse of Deepsoft's brain—the rise of the satellite, the noted
moment of the joining, the positions of the sister worlds, the flare activity
of the sun. It was recorded and read back. Deepsoft lay very, very still. He
was pleased. His measurements and the movement of air masses from the
south confirmed the end of a sun circle. Now was a time of beginning, a
time of renewed hope.

He had seen beginnings. He never failed to anticipate each new one.
Moreover, he never lost hope even when his measurements, and the
readings of other Far Seers, were discouraging. He had traveled on the
force of a Power Giver to the vast waters of the south. Hovering high above
he had seen the sea of slime, the natural breeding ground of the Breathers.
Once, he had actually measured an increase in the number of Breathers
—the record of it was stored in his Keeper's brain. But the green slime of
the next sun circle was dense, causing their numbers to decline abruptly.
In all the vast, murky seas there was only a tiny area in the south where
currents, winds, or some other unknown factor allowed a frighteningly
small colony of Breathers to survive. But nature would not allow defeat. A
world was solidity, reality, and to comprehend the solidity and the reality
life, a thinking brain, was required. To envision a world without life was to
negate the basic purpose of all creation. No, the Breathers would adapt;
they would learn to live atop the thick, heavy water. Life would go on. And
someday the New One would be born and the last remaining resources of