"Alexei Panshin - Sons of Prometheus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Panshin Alexei)

"I'm from your uncle. Hop in, boy, and let's be off."
Tansman swung his bag over the side and into the bed of the wagon, stepped on the wheel hub and
up to the seat. The little man, with quick movements, freed the hitched horses, tossed the grease-covered
rag he'd been holding into the back of the wagon, hopped up to the seat, and in not more than thirty
seconds from the disappearance of the coach the wagon was in motion, too, headed away from the
square down the rutted street.
The little man shouted to the horses and took to the street at the highest speed he could manage,
clearly wishing, as much as the coach driver, to be away from this silent town of grimly-shuttered
windows and unstaveable death. The wagon rumbled and shook as the wheels bounced from rut to rut.
The quick old man didn't slow the pace until the last flat-topped roof had been left behind, and then he
brought the team down to a walk. "You're lucky I waited for you, boy. I wouldn't have stayed another
ten minutes."
"The fever?"
"Aye, the megrim. I haven't lived these many years to end my days being sizzled in the town square
and I don't fancy walking around with half my mind leached should I survive the megrim, neither." He
looked at the blank sky. "I should have known. The megrim is no more than you should expect when five
moons are full and the shippeens are about."
Tansman said, "Do you work for my uncle?"
"Yes. Old Garth, they call me." "How do you do?"
"Well enough, thankee, lad,"
Garth said, almost absently. He gave one last look back to the town, as though he expected to see
something monstrous sneaking up on tiptoe to catch them unawares. He lifted the reins in hands twisted
and brown like roots. "Let's do our chatting later. The soonest away, the better."

The countryside to the left was small hills rising away; to the right it was reasonably level as far as the
eye could see. The road followed a hill slope down from the town to meet the flatland. The soil was the
color and texture of the adobe buildings in town, cracked tan mud. There were no trees on either hills or
flats, just sparse gray scrub. They reached the flatland in less than ten minutes, and here the road
continued, almost straight and almost level, parallel to the line of hills. In another mile they came to a
crossroads.
There was a sign that read Del-era and pointed toward a break in the hills. The road followed the
pointing finger of the sign. The sign knew enough to stand and point; the road, following the sign's advice,
was lost in the hills. Old Garth, without slackening the wagon's speed, brought the horses left and they
turned toward the hills.
Just beyond the crossroads, however, there was a white-robed figure carrying a traveling bag and
trudging toward the hills. The impression that the figure gave to Tansman was of unyielding determination,
that no matter how long it took, its steady, even, foot-after-foot pace would be maintained until it arrived
at its destination.
Garth brought the wagon alongside. Perhaps Tansman's impression came in part from the fact that it
was only then, for all their noise and the dust they raised, that the friar noticed their presence.
"Good afternoon, Brother," Garth said: "Do you care to ride?" The friar turned his head and looked
at them. "I'm going to the monastery at Delera." He was a pleasant-looking man of middle age, stubby
and stout.
Garth, said, "That is where we are bound."
"Well, bless you."
The wagon lurched forward again with the friar sitting in back, brushing dust from his robes. Sitting
on his own bag and using Tansman's larger bag for a backrest, he managed to have a seat that was
reasonably stable and reasonably comfortable. He introduced himself as Brother Boris. He had a red
face and just a fringe of hair, and a thoroughly plebeian look, but he also had that air of determination and
detachment that was somehow more impressive than his looks. Tans-man's curiosity was piqued.