"LaHaye, Tim - Left Behind 11 - Armageddon" - читать интересную книгу автора (LaHaye Tim)
"Wouldn't you rather drown it? Won't take but a minute to drop it in the drink."
"What'm I going to do, Mac, roll down my window and toss it out?"
"Nah. There's a dandy little thing we used to do in the military when we wanted to drop something from altitude. You stick it in the speed brake well, which is, of course, closed on the ground. When we get back in the air, I'll activate the speed brake-"
"Which will open the panel. Beautiful."
"Yes," Mac said. "You just take her up, throttle up, activate the brake, and send that phone into the wild blue yonder."
"I don't want to lose any time fooling around." "Gimme that thing. I'll do it. Won't take more'n sixty seconds."
"I've got to copy Chloe's message first. She's trying to tell me something, that's for sure."
"It's about my turn for a break anyway, Ray. Once you get it ciphered, switch seats with me and I'll study it."
Chang had arrived at Petra in the middle of the after-noon, and Naomi offered to give him his first look at the place. "I will leave word at the computer center to let us know when they learn anything about Chloe," she said, "but I don't want you to see that place until the end, okay?"
He shrugged.
"Abdullah got someone to take your things to your new quarters, which are not far from his. He will take you there so you can get settled, and then I will come by to give you your first day's tour."
Chang had been determined not to let anyone immedi-ately pair him off with somebody. Especially not Naomi. She had to still be a teenager, which was all right. He was just twenty himself. And while there was no ques-tion about her intellect and technical brilliance, they were going to have to work closely over the next year. Why complicate things?
And yet ... in person she was stunning. Olive skin and welcoming dark eyes were set off by her long, black hair. Chang found it difficult not to stare. She had a beautiful, shy smile, and she seemed so friendly and self-less. He had never even had a girlfriend, only girls he had been interested in in high school but whom he would never have dared let know it.
On the way to Chang's prefabricated quarters, Abdul-lah seemed to know everybody and wanted them to meet him. They treated Chang like royalty, but he was so ashamed of bearing the mark of Carpathia that he kept his baseball cap pulled low. His instinct was to remove it and bow each time, but he could not.
"Our man inside the palace," Abdullah called him, and people embraced him or shook his hand, and many blessed him.
To Chang it was a foretaste of heaven. "I wonder what the chances are of meeting Dr. Ben-Judah and Dr. Rosenzweig," he said.
"Oh, I am so sorry," Abdullah said. "I was supposed to tell you. They send their most abject apologies for not greeting you appropriately. They have been meeting with the elders about the issue of Chloe's disappearance, and they have a council meeting later. They request that you join them over manna in the morning."
"Good, yes. Thank you, Mr. Smith. I have something I must consult with Dr. Ben-Judah about."
"I believe Naomi's father would like to meet you too."
He could tell from Abdullah's inflection that he was trying to say something, but Chang would not bite. "Well, I will look forward to meeting him as well."
When they reached the dwellings, shipped in and assembled by a team led by Lionel Whalum, Abdullah first showed Chang his own place. "You can see that I like to live close to the ground. I sit outside near a fire when I eat my manna. And inside, I sleep on the floor. If that is not your custom, you need not do that. Your place is not much different in size from what you had at the palace, but of course it is much plainer and simpler."
"It's perfect," Chang said when they arrived. His lug-gage lay next to his cot and his computers and file boxes sat by the door. "I will sleep tonight a free man, worried about nothing but the welfare of our comrades."
"I'll leave you to unpack. If you need anything, you can see my place from here. Do you need anything at all?"
"Just one thing. I am a little nervous about the manna. Does everyone care for it?"
Half an hour later, when Chang had his place situated just the way he wanted it, he heard a knock. "Come in!" he said, but no one did. As he approached the door, he said, "It's open!" Still nothing.
He opened the door to Naomi. "Come in, come in!" he said.
"Oh, I must not," she said. "In my culture it is improper."
"I'm sorry."
"You'll learn. Come, let me show you Petra."
"No word yet on Chloe?" he said as they ventured out.
She shook her head. "It's not going to come to a good end, you know."
"That's my fear," he said. "But we can hope and pray."
Naomi explained that the city was so spread out that it would take days to see it all. "We'll get ATVs near the tech center. Then let me take you to the Treasury first, then to a few of the nearby tombs-there are many. Finally I'd like to take you to the high place where the missile hit and the spring still bubbles, providing daily water for more than a million people. If I have timed it right, it should then be close to sundown, and we can enjoy our manna with water directly from the source."
Chang was not used to this much walking and climbing, so he was glad when they were finally aboard four-wheel-ers. He was stunned by Petra's beautiful architecture and wondered how anyone could have carved such structures out of solid rock.
When they finally reached the crest of the high place, where the spring cascaded into cisterns and aqueducts to the entire area, Naomi cut her engine and signaled Chang to do the same.
"Are you thirsty?" she said.
"Always. But mostly I'm trying to get used to not worrying who is watching."
"I cannot imagine. Are you willing to drink from my hands?"
Chang, usually quick and flippant, only smiled. "What-ever is proper in your culture."
She knelt and washed her hands in a brook, shaking them dry. Chang did the same. She took him as close as they could get to the center of the spring. "Ready?" she said.
He nodded, and she thrust her cupped hands into the water, bringing them up to just under his chin. "Hurry," she said, laughing. "My hands are not watertight."
He lowered his face into her hands and took a huge gulp. His throat had been more parched than he knew, and though the water could have been only a few degrees cooler than the air, it felt almost icy. He coughed and laughed and said, "More."
He drank from her hands again, and she said, "My turn."
Chang made a bowl of his palms and let her drink. "Enough?" he said, when his hands were empty. She nodded, and he cupped her face and wiped the dust from under her shining eyes. He spread his fingers and extended his hands, brushing through her hair.
Naomi closed her eyes and lifted her face to the setting sun, spreading her arms and holding her hands palms up. "Here it comes, Chang. Receive your daily bread from the God of heaven."
Chang stepped back, looked up, and extended his arms as the skies seemed to snow bits of soft bread that covered the entire area. Below, the million strong emerged from their quarters with jars and baskets, and gathered what they needed for dinner.
"Just like in the Bible," Naomi said, "we are to take what we need but not store any. It will spoil and we will have shown our lack of faith in God to provide every day."
Chang sat beside her and scooped manna into his hand. "Do you ask God to bless food that he has just personally delivered?" he said.
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