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

"Certainly you can."

"Not without twisting like a contortionist, I can't."

"Try."
Khadaji tried. He kept his weight on his left foot while he stretched his
right leg and attempted to twist his ankle to make his right foot conform to
the diagram. He lost his balance and almost fell. "Can't do it," he said.

"No?" Pen motioned for Khadaji to stand aside. He stood at the beginning of
the pattern and began to walk it. When he reached the sixth step, he simply
did it. Khadaji wasn't sure how. One second he was facing this way, the next
second, that way. The man was shorter, had shorter legs, and if he could
stretch that far, Khadaji should be able to also.

It took nine tries before he succeeded, but Khadaji finally made the sixth
step. He looked at Pen and smiled.

Pen's face was invisible within the shroud, but he did nod. "Very good. The
seventh step?"

Khadaji looked down. Buddha! It was impossible, nobody could get there without
falling! He glared at Pen, mentally daring him to do it.

Pen did. This time, he walked the entire pattern, almost a hundred steps.
Ninety-seven, to be exact. It was a number Khadaji would grow to detest. In
six weeks, he could manage to make it to step fifty. Sometimes. It was
radically different than the oppugnate training he had learned in the
military. It didn't seem to make any sense.

During that time, Pen began to teach Khadaji other things. They hopped around
on one leg. Sat motionless for long periods. Did stretching exercises which
hurt him in places Khadaji didn't even know he had. He was learning something,
Khadji knew. What, he didn't know. But something.

Somewhere along the way, Khadaji began to lose the sense of foreknowledge he'd
had. He still had the memory, but the sense of oneness he'd felt with the
universe during the slaughter faded and became less sharp. There were some
moments when he could touch it, but they became fewer and shorter. It was as
if he'd passed through a magical door on a conveyer; he continued to move and
the door grew smaller behind him. He wanted to stay at the portal, but he
could not. And he didn't know where he was going.

So, when Pen began one particular teaching, Khadaji found himself puzzled.

They were sitting in the largest of Pen's rooms, a low-ceilinged square six
meters on a side. The room was cool, despite the heat of Maro's summer
outside, kept that way by a strip of lindex filter set under the opaqued
window. There were three foam chairs, a desk with a comp terminal on it, and a