"Chad Oliver - The Winds of Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Oliver Chad)

"That makes us even," said Arvon.
"We'll never find it, you know," the anthropologist said.
"We've got to find it," Arvon replied. "That's all there is to it."
"More hoping, Arvon?"
"A man can do worse."
The ship plunged on. Framed by stars, she lanced through darkness unimaginable, toward light.
Toward a yellow sun, flanked by two other suns, one near, one far away.
The system of Alpha Centauri, over four light-years from a world called Earth.


SIX
Kolraq sat alone, his thoughts moking the silent journey down to the world below the ship. He did not
like to be alone at a time like this, but Hafij was occupied, and the navigator was the only man aboard
with whom he felt completely at ease.
 Something about the stars, he had often thought of Hafij. He has looked long at the stars, and
that is the beginning of wisdom.
Well, he could not share his thoughts with Hafij now.
Kolraq reflected, not for the first time, that a spaceship was a strange place for a priest. Most of the
others, when they thought about him at all, dismissed him as a mystic and let it go at that. It was not a
term of condemnation with them; when they stuck the mystic label on him they simply proved to their
own satisfaction that he was no part of their world—he became a man to be treated with courtesy, but
not a man to take very seriously.
Well, it was an odd business, this being a priest in this day and age. There had been a time on Lortas
when the Church had been powerful, but the last century had seen it divided and weak; it was hardly
more than a philosophy at best in these days, and at worst—
If only man had never gone into space! If only he had never found what he did find! But no, that was
spineless thinking. Surely, a true God was not destroyed by the truth, no matter where it was found.
There must be an answer, some other answer than the one men had been finding over and over again, the
answer that mocked them on every habitable world in all the abyss of space …
Centaurus Four, now!
There was a chance, there was always a chance. If there was a unity to all life, as he had been taught,
as he tried to believe with his heart and soul, then there had to be another answer than the one men had
found. -
Had to be, had to be!
"Ah, Kolraq!" a voice cut in on his thoughts. "What's new in the crystal ball department?"
Lajor, of course. Why couldn't the newsman leave him alone at a time like this? Would the man
chatter on the brink of eternity itself? But these are not charitable thoughts, Kolraq. If you cannot
find charity in yourself, why expect it in others?
"The crystal ball is cloudy, I'm afraid."
Lajor seated himself. He was a sloppy man, sloppy in his dress, in his work, perhaps in his thoughts.
True, thought Kolraq, his travel books were more popular than the novels of Nlesine, but they would be
sooner forgotten. Charity, charity!
Lajor scribbled on a pad. "Centaurus Four, open the door!" He chuckled, and Kolraq dredged up a
faint smile. "Big scoop coming up, you know it! We'll go flipping around the old rock pile, with Seyehi's
computers buzzing and clacking, and then we'll zoom down and let Derryoc squint at his eternal
problems. Then down goes the Good Hope, splat! We all get out and scrabble around, and what do I
get out of it? Another little old chapter, same as all the rest. Centaurus Four, you're a bore!"
"There's a chance," the priest said. Was there, was there?
"Sure, sure." Lajor screwed up his face into a fair imitation of Nlesine's plump features. "But it looks
bad to Nlesine!"