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

 Tansman half-turned on his seat to speak to the friar, who was sitting just behind Garth, and asked,
"How do you happen to be traveling with the fever abroad?"
Brother Boris smiled, "The business of the Confraternity doesn't wait on the megrim—in fact, just the
opposite. The megrim is a sign that the Men of the Ships are about and then the Confraternity must be
particularly watchful. Heresy, evil and disease travel together—and the effects are a certain sign of the
cause."
Garth spoke without turning his head. "It's as I told you," he said, "when all the moons are full, the
shippeens are abroad."
"No, my son," Brother Boris said. "You must not believe that. What you have said is rank
superstition. The Confraternity has kept careful records—as I may say, I having spent a year assigned to
the task when first I aspired to the Questryand the phases of the moons have nothing to do with the Men
of the Ships. During the year I labored at the records, a nest of Shipmen, openly proclaiming themselves
and calling themselves The Sons of Prometho, were eliminated by the Confraternity and at that time
Aleph and Veth were full, Gimel was in the last quarter, and Daleth and Beth were new. Only once in
fifteen Aleph months are all the moons full together, and heresy, evil and disease and the men that spread
them are to be found in any month."
"But still," Garth said, "the moons are full now."
"Yes," Brother Boris said. Then he said to Tansman, "And why are you traveling when the moons are
full?"
Tansman said, "When I set out, I didn't know there was danger of the megrim, and by the time I
learned, it was easier to go on than to go back. I'm going to run my uncle's store. Garth here works for
my uncle."
It had been agreed upon that Rilke would be known as Tansman's uncle. This had struck Tansman as
odd because he knew that Rilke and he were within a few years of the same age—he was forty-six and
Rilke a little older—and he would have thought that making them brothers, or cousins, might have been
more appropriate. The choice had been Nancy Poate's, however, and Tansman hadn't been interested
enough to argue any points with her. The friar asked, "And what is with your uncle?"
"He journeys to see his parents. I doubt news of the megrim will stop him. They're very old now, and
ill, and not expected to live more than a short time at best."
"A dutiful son."
It was well after dark when they reached Delera. The road calve down a steep grade to the town.
Halfway down it, they stopped to let Brother Boris get off. The monastery was set in the hillside above
the road and it made a dark looming shape against the clouds. There was a lane leading up from the
road. "Thank you very much for the ride," Brother Boris said. "It has been a pleasure to meet you, Mr.
Tansman, and you, Garth. Perhaps I'll stop at your store one of these days and say hello."
As they drove away, Garth said, "He's a canny one, isn't he?"
"He's not usual. Will he come to the store?"
"Aye, and you'd best be on your mark, too," Garth said, laughing. "When a Questryman is about,
that's the time to mind the tight and tender."

Rilke's store was a low adobe structure, one story in the front, two stories in the middle, one story
with a patio on top in the rear. Behind it, along the back of the lot, was a warehouse-cum-stable, also of
adobe. Both store and warehouse were closely hemmed by similar buildings like piled blocks. The street
was quiet except for a dog who barked and played tag with the horses' hoofs. They swung in beside the
store and the dog, apparently self-satisfied, fell away. There were lights upstairs and down in the center
of the building. Garth pulled in by a door that opened on the alley.
"Hop on down," Garth said. "I'll see to the horses."
Tansman grabbed his bag and stepped down. There was a figure in the doorway, holding a lamp.
Garth and the wagon rattled on and Tans-man looked up. The man in the doorway was no more than his
height, even with the advantage of being a step higher. He had a nar row-chinned face and long wispy