"George R. R. Martin - And Seven Times Never Kill Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

he could carry, and his salt was all but exhausted. He laced up his boots
again, packed his acquisitions with painstaking care, and sat patiently in
the poolside grass, waiting. One by one, the waterfall folk joined him.
Finally the old talker returned.
The prayers began.
 The old talker, with the laser still in his hand, waded carefully across the
night-dark waters, to squat by the black bulk of the pyramid. The others,
adults and children together, now some forty strong, chose spots in the
grass near the banks, behind neKrol and around him. Like him, they
looked out over the pool, at the pyramid and the talker outlined clearly in
the light of a new-risen, oversized moon. Setting the laser down on the
stone, the old talker pressed both palms flat against the side of the
pyramid, and his body seemed to go stiff, while all the other Jaenshi also
tensed and grew very quiet.
NeKrol shifted restlessly and fought a yawn. It was not the first time
he'd sat through a prayer ritual, and he knew the routine. A good hour of
boredom lay before him; the Jaenshi did silent worship. and there was
nothing to be heard but their steady breathing, nothing to be seen but
forty impassive faces. Sighing, the trader tried to relax, closing his eyes
and concentrating on the soft grass beneath him and the warm breeze
that tossed his wild mane of hair. Here, briefly, he found peace. How long
would it last, he mused, should the Steel Angels leave their valley . . .
The hour passed, but neKrol, lost in meditation, scarce felt the flow of
time. Until suddenly he heard the rustlings and chatter around him, as the
waterfall folk rose and went back into the forest. And then the old talker
stood in front of him, and laid the laser at his feet.
"No," he said simply.
NeKrol started. "What? But you must. Let me show you what it can do .
. ."
"I have had a vision, Arik. The god has shown me. But also he has
shown me that it would not be a good thing to take this in trade."
"Old talker, the Steel Angels will come . . ."
"If they come, our god shall speak to them," the Jaenshi elder said, in
his purring speech, but there was finality in the gentle voice, and no
appeal in the vast liquid eyes.



"For our food, we thank ourselves, none other. It is ours because we
worked for it, ours because we fought for it, ours by the only right that is:
the right of the strong. But for that strength—for the might of our arms
and the steel of our swords and the fire in our hearts—we thank Bakkalon,
the pale child, who gave us life and taught us how to keep it."
The Proctor stood stiffly at the centermost of the five long wooden
tables that stretched the length of the great mess hall, pronouncing each
word of the grace with solemn dignity. His large veined hands pressed
tightly together as he spoke, against the flat of the upward-jutting sword,
and the dim lights had faded his uniform to an almost-black. Around him,
the Steel Angels sat at attention, their food untouched before them; fat
boiled tubers, steaming chunks of bushog meat, black bread, bowls of