"Julian May - The Many - Coloured Land" - читать интересную книгу автора (May Julian)

Emanations of sorrow, rage, and fear filled the dying Ship. Questions and reproaches threatened to
stifle the mind of Thagdal until he touched the golden torc around his neck and forced them all to
be silent.
"In the Name of the Goddess, hold! Our venture was a great gamble, with all minds turned against
us. Brede is concerned that this place may not be the perfect refuge we had hoped for.
Nevertheless, it is fully compatible, in a remote galaxy where none will dare to look for us. We
are safe and have not had to use Spear or Sword. Brede and our Ship have done well to bring us
here. Praise to their strength!"
The antiphon was raised dutifully. But sticking up out of the symmetry of it was a prickly
thought:
Hymns be damned. Can we survive here?
Thagdal lashed back. "We will survive if Compassionate Tana wills, and even find the joy that has
eluded us so long. But no thanks to you, Pallol! Shadow-sib! Ancient enemy! Trucebreaker! When we
are delivered from this immediate peril you will answer to me!"


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A certain amount of vulgar enmity swirled up to merge with Pallol's; but it was fogged by the dull-
witted tone of mind that comes from the relief of terrible pain. Nobody else really wanted to
fight now. Only the irrepressible Pallol was as game as ever.
Brede Shipspouse flowed soothingly over the impending shambles. "This Many-Colored Land will be a
good place for us, my King. And you need have no fear, Pallol One-Eye, I have already sounded the
planet, lightly, of course, and found no mental challenge. The dominant life-form dwells in
speechless innocence and can be no threat to us for more than six million planetary orbits. Yet
its germ plasm is indeed compatible for the nurturing and the service. With patience and skilled
labor we will surely survive. Now let us go forth from here holding to our truce awhile longer.
Let no one speak of vengeance, nor of mistrust of my beloved Spouse."
"Well said, Prescient Lady," came the thoughts and spoken words of the others. (Any dissenters
were now keeping well submerged.)
Thagdal said, "The small flyers are waiting for us. As we depart, let all minds be raised in
salute."
He went stomping from the control deck, golden hair and beard still crackling with squelched fury,
white robes brushing over the now dulled metalloid of the decking. Eadone, Dionket, and Mayvar
Kingmaker followed after, minds linked in the Song, fingers giving a farewell caress to the fast-
cooling walls that had once thrummed with benevolent power. Little by little the others in various
parts of the Ship took up the anthem until nearly all of them were hi communion.
Flyers spurted away from the moribund vessel. More than forty birdlike machines pierced the
atmosphere like glowing darts before decelerating abruptly and spreading their wings. One took the
lead and the others formed a stately procession in its wake. They flew toward the world's largest
landmass to await the calculated impact, came up from the south and crossed over the most
distinctive feature of the planet, a vast, nearly dry sea basin, glittering with salt pans, which
cut an irregular gash across the western reaches of the major continent. A snowy range made a
barrier north of this Empty Sea. The flyers went beyond the mountains and hovered over the valley
of a large eastward-flowing river, waiting.
The Ship entered on a westerly course, leaving a fiery trail as it ablated in the atmosphere. It
swept the ground with a horrendous pressure wave that incinerated vegetation and altered the very
minerals of the landscape below. Molten globules of green and brown glass showered the eastern
highlands as the Ship's integument exploded away. The river waters vaporized from their bed.