"Julian May - The Pliocene Exiles 02 - The Golden Torc 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (May Julian)

He could go anywhere he liked. He was free now. Gone were the mental restraints programmed upon him by the exotic slavemaster. This morning when he awoke, the silver torc at his throat was cold rather than warm, the neural circuitry of the psychocoercive device overloaded and rendered useless by his mind's new power. The metapsychic latencies that the torc had unlocked remained operant. And were still growing. He reached out with his farsense, listening. He perceived the slow-cycling rhythms of the seven people asleep in the craft beneath him, and farther afield, telepathic murmurs from other boats scattered about the Great Lagoon. In the distant south he concentrated his farsense, clumsily attempting fine focus, was a conglomerate mental shimmer. Fascinating! Could it be coming from the Tanu capital city of Muriah, the goal toward which they had been traveling these past five days? If he gave a hail, would anyone down there answer? Try!

There came a hard bright response, shocking in its eagerness:

O shining boymind who?

Well... Aiken Drum that's who.

Hold still littlemind so far yet so glowing. Ah!

No. Stop that!

Do not pull away Shining One. What can you be?

Let go dammit!

Do not withdraw I think I know you...

Suddenly, he was overcome by an unprecedented fear. That distant unknown was locking onto him, coming at him in some manner down the pathway of his own mind's beam. He pulled away from the grasp and discovered too late that it was going to take almost all of his strength to sever the connection. He tore free. He found himself falling through thin air, his dragonfly shape shifted back to vulnerable humanity. Wind whistled in his ears. He plunged toward the boat, mind and voice screaming, and only managed to regain control and the insect form a scant moment before disaster. Trembling and funked out, he settled to the tip of the mast.

His projected panic had awakened the others. The boat began to rock, generating concentric ripples in the pale lagoon. Elizabeth and Creyn emerged from the covered passenger compartment to stare at him; and Raimo, with an expression of bleary incomprehension on his upturned face; and scowling Stein, with worried little Sukey; and Highjohn, the skipper, who yelled, "I know that's you up there, Aiken Drum! God help you if you've been playing any of your tricks with my boat!"

The boatman's shout brought out the last passenger, the torcless anthropologist, Bryan Grenfell, who was feeling testy and was aware of none of the telepathic querying now being hurled at the dragonfly by the others. "Is it necessary to rock the boat quite so much?"

"Aiken, come down," Creyn said aloud.

"Not bloody likely," the dragonfly replied. Wings abuzz, the insect prepared to flee.

The Tanu raised one slender hand in an ironic gesture. "Fly away, then, you fool. But be sure you understand what you're renouncing. It makes no difference that you've escaped the torc. We were expecting that. Allowances have been made. Special privileges have been arranged for you in Muriah."

A doubting laugh. "I've already had a little hint of that."

"So?" Creyn was unconcerned. "If you'd kept your wits about you, you'd know that you have nothing to fear from Mayvar. On the contrary! But make no mistake, even without the silver torc, she is able to detect you now, wherever you might go. Running away would be the worst mistake you could possibly make. There's nothing for you out there, all alone. Your fulfillment lies with us, in Muriah. Now come down. It's time we resumed our journey. We should arrive in the capital tonight, and you can judge for yourself whether or not I've told the truth."

Abruptly, the tall exotic man withdrew into the passenger compartment. The small group of humans remained on deck, gasping.

"Oh, what the hell," said the dragonfly.

It spiraled down, landed at the skipper's feet, and became a little man clad in a gold-fabric costume all covered with pockets. Selfconfidence completely restored, Aiken Drum grinned his golliwog grin.

"Maybe I will stick around awhile. For as long as it suits me."

That evening, when the throng of Tanu riders came to welcome the boat to the shores of Aven, Bryan could think of only a single thing: that Mercy might be somewhere among the exotic cavalcade. And so he rushed from one side of the boat to the other while a team of twenty stout helladotheria, looking something like giant okapis, were hitched to the craft in preparation for its being hauled up the long rollered way to Muriah. There was a bright gibbous moon. A kilometer or so above the docks, which lay on a saltflat surrounded by weathered masses of striped evaporite, the Tanu capital city glittered on the dark peninsular height like an Earthbound galaxy.

"Mercy!" Bryan called. "Mercy, I'm here!"

There were numbers of human men and women riding together with the tall exotics, dressed, like them, either in faceted and spiked glass armor or richly jeweled gauze robes. The flameless torches that they carried cast beams of many colors. The riders laughed at Bryan and ignored the questions that he tried to shout amidst the tumult of the hitching. So many of the human women perched on the great chalikos seemed to have auburn hair! Again and again Bryan strained to catch a closer glimpse of a likely one. But always when the beautiful rider approached it was not Mercy Lamballe, nor even one who really looked like her.

Aiken Drum stood on one of the boat seats posturing like a gilded puppet, throwing out teasing or challenging quips that provoked exotic hilarity and increased the bedlam. The Finno-Canadian woodsman, Ramio Hakkinen, hung over the pneumatic gunwale of the boat kissing the proffered hands of the ladies and toasting the men with swigs from his silver flask. In contrast, Stein Oleson sat back in the shadows with one huge arm curved protectively around Sukey, both of them apprehensive. Skipper Highjohn came to stand beside Bryan in the bows.