"Norton, Andre - Solar Queen 03- Voodoo Planet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

while on taming runs. Tomorrow--no," he corrected himself, "the day after tomorrow I will be able to
show you how the process works."

"And tomorrow?" inquired the captain.

"Tomorrow my men make hunting magic." Asaki's voice was expressionless.

"Your chief witch doctor being?" questioned Tau.

"Lumbrilo." The Chief Ranger did not appear disposed to add to that but Tau pursued the subject.

"His office is hereditary?"

"Yes. Does that make any difference?" For the first time there was a current of repressed eagerness in the
other's tone.

"Perhaps a vast amount of difference," Tau replied. "A hereditary office may carry with it two forms of
conditioning, one to influence its holder, one to affect the public-at-large. Your Lumbrilo may have come
to believe deeply in his own powers; he would be a very remarkable man if he did not. It is almost certain
that your people unquestionably accept him as a worker of wonders?"

"They do so accept," Once more Asaki's voice was drained of life.

"And Lumbrilo does not accept something you believe necessary?"

"Again the truth, Medic. Lumbrilo does not accept his proper place in the scheme of things!"
"He is a member of one of your Five Families?"

"No, his clan is small, always set apart. From the beginning here those who spoke for gods and demons did
not also order men."

"Separation of church and state," commented Tau thoughtfully. "Yet in our Terran past there have been
times when church and state were one. Does Lumbrilo desire that?"

Asaki raised his eyes to the mountain peaks, to the northward where lay his beloved work.

"I do not know what Lumbrilo wants, save that it makes mischief--or worse! This I tell you: hunting
magic is part of our lives and it has at its core some of those unexplainable happenings which you have
acknowledged do exist. I have used powers I can neither explain nor understand as part of my work. In the
jungle and on the grasslands an off-worlder must guard his life with a stass belt if he goes unarmed. But
I--any of my men--can walk unharmed if we obey the rules of our magic. Only Lumbrilo does other
things which his forefathers did not. And he boasts that he can do more. So he has a growing following of
those who believe--and those who fear."

"You want me to face him?"

The Chief Ranger's big hands closed upon the rim of the parapet as if they could exert enough pressure to
crumble the hard stone. "I want you to see whether there is trickery in this. Trickery I can fight, for that
there are weapons. But if Lumbrilo truly controls forces for which there is no name, then perhaps we must
patch up an uneasy peace--or go down in defeat. And, off-worlder, I come from a line of warriors--we do