"Steve Perry - The Man Who Never Missed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Steven)

still thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of them, all moving
opposite the way he now walked. Those in front of him moved to let him pass,
as if they knew he was a man with a mission, as if they could somehow see he
was a man on fire.

He walked on, not knowing where he would go, what exactly he would do, only
that he was going to do something. He had no money, no way to get off the
world, no way to live. He had known only the military and he was done with
that now. But he didn't worry. He had no cares and no problem was too big for
him to solve, he knew he had the answers somewhere within him, he had only to
look.

Somewhere within him, he would find a plan.

Chapter Seven

THE MEMORY OF it was still strong as he wandered about the streets of
Notzeerath. A few kilometers away, three-quarters of a million people had died
violently only days earlier, but there was no sign of it here. There was no
fear of the Void in these people, he understood that now. They were believers
in soul regeneration, of being born anew after each cycle. Their High Priest
was considered a god and they would march into the teeth and claws of death
for him. Many had. More would. Khadaji was wrapped in his personal Realization
still, and so he understood. He knew whatever answers he needed would come to
him—he was operating totally on an intuitive level for the first time in his
life. He didn't worry about the Military looking for him. They would surely
think he was dead—walking into the fanatics as he had, he should have been
torn to pieces. They wouldn't even look for his body, among all the others. He
stood on a corner, awash in the sensual input of the city: six-wheeled
vehicles with alcohol-powered engines rumbled by on hard plastic tires; people
shopped at an open-air fruit and vegetable market; the steady thrum of a
broadcast generator vibrated from the plastcrete through his bare feet. He had
thrown his boots away.

"Lost, pilgrim?" came a deep voice from behind him.

Khadaji turned, to see a figure wrapped from head to foot in folds of gray
cloth. Only the eyes and hands were visible in the gray cloud. The eyes were
green and clear, the hands short-fingered and powerful looking, ridged with
tendons and thick veins. A man's hands. He must be hot under all that
material, Khadaji thought.

Khadaji smiled. "Lost? No. I don't know where I am, but I'm not lost."

The man in gray laughed. "A zen answer, pilgrim, and perfect for a holy man.
Have you been such long?"

"I'm not a holy man," he said. "Until a few days ago, I was a soldier.
Something... happened. I... saw something, felt something, somehow. A vision."