"E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 18 - Incident on Ath" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

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Incident on Ath by E.C.
Tubb
Chapter One
The figure was becoming far too bizarre in its depiction of
pain. Thoughtfully Cornelius studied it, unsatisfied; no one
locked in a personal hell of torment should present the likeness of
a clown. The jaw was disproportioned and he altered it with a
touch of the brush. The eyes, deeply sunken beneath flaring
brows, held what could be taken for a glint of ironic amusement
and the mouth, gaping, seemed to bear the ghostly vestige of a
smile. Only the body gave him satisfaction; thin, gaunt, the ribs
stark, the stomach a taut concavity, the musculature harshly
delineated. The toes, like the fingers, were indrawn in the
semblance of avian claws.

A man suspended by lashings holding his wrists to a beam.
One left to die in isolation. A simple theme— what had gone
wrong?

Irritably Cornelius set down his brush and examined the
painting with minute care. The background, a coiling mass of
amorphous vapor, was deliberately neutral as was the
foreground, a raw expanse of sand and stone. The cross-beam,
like those supporting it at either end, was of rough wood
depicted with the same lack of fine detail in order to throw the
suspended figure into greater prominence.

A man hanging, naked, lost in a universe of pain. One alone
and beyond even the concept of hope. A human creature in the
last stages of terminal agony. A victim. A sacrifice.

And yet, somehow, he had missed capturing the essential
ingredient. To simply depict pain was not enough; there had to
be an affinity between the viewer and the subject. A delicate
communication which would be marred by the slightest
inconsistency. Surely he had the details right?

Cornelius leaned back in his chair, thinking, blinking to sigh
with vexation. No, he had not been wrong about the anatomical
details. A man so suspended would have the entire weight of his
body thrown in a constriction against the lungs which would
require a constant effort to ensure an intake of air. Death would