"Walter Jon Williams - Prayers On The Wind (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter John)

"Many humans would give their lives for such a blessing," said Jigme. "Sticking out the lip is quite rude where I come from, you know."
"I believe you have told me this."
"The Omniscient's hands were very warm." !urq raised fingers to her forehead, touched the ebon flesh. " I believe I can still feel the heat on my skin.
Jigme was impressed. "The Treasured King has given you a special bless­ing. He can channel the energies of the Diamond Mountain through his body. That was the heat you felt."
!urq's antennae rose skeptically, but she refrained from comment. "Would you like to see the holy places?" Jigme said. "This, for instance, is a room devoted to Maitreya, the Buddha That Will Come. Before you is his statue. Data can be accessed by manipulation of the images on his headdress."
Jigme's speech was interrupted by the entrance of a Masker servant from the audience room. A white khata was draped about the avian's neck. !urq's trunk swiveled atop her centaur body; her arms assumed a commanding stance. The clicks and pops of her own language rattled from her mouth like falling stones.
"Did I send for you, creature?"
The Masker performed an obsequious gesture with its parasol. " I beg the Colonel's pardon. The old human sent for us. He is touching us and giving us scarves." The Masker fluttered helplessly. "We did not wish to offend our hosts, and there were no Sang to query for instruction."
"How odd," said !urq. "Why should the old human want to bless our slaves?" She eyed. The Masker and thought for a moment. "I will not kill you today," she decided. She turned to Jigme and switched to Tibetan. "Please continue, Rinpoche."
"As you wish, Colonel." He returned to his speech. "The Library Palace is the site of no less than twenty-one tombs of various bodhisattvas, including many incarnations of the Gyalpo Rinpoche. The Palace also contains over eight thousand data terminals and sixty shrines."
As he rattled through the prepared speech, Jigme wondered about the scene he had just witnessed. He suspected that "I will not kill you today" was less alarming than it sounded, was instead an idiomatic way of saying "Go about your business."
Then again, knowing the Sang, maybe not.
The Cabinet had gathered in one of the many other reception rooms of the Library Palace. This one was small, the wails and ceiling hidden behind tapestry covered with applique, the room's sole ornament a black stone statue of a dancing demon that served tea on command.
The Gyalpo Rinpoche, to emphasize his once-humble origins, was seated on the floor. White stubble prickled from his scalp.
Jigme sat cross-legged on a pillow. Across from him was Dr. O'Neill. A lay official, her status was marked by the long turquoise earring that hung from her left ear to her collarbone, that and the long hair piled high on her head. The rosary she held was made of 108 antique microprocessors pierced and strung on a length of fiberoptic cable. Beside her sat the cheerful Miss Taisuke, the Minister of State. Although only fifteen years old, she was Jigme's immediate superior, her authority derived from being the certified reincarnation of a famous hermit nun of the Yellow Hat Gelugspa order. Beside her, the Minister of Magic, a tantric sorcerer of the Gyud School named Daddy Carbajal, toyed with a trumpet made from a human thigh­bone. Behind him in a semireclined position was the elderly, frail, toothless State Oracle--his was a high-ranking position, but it was a largely symbolic one as long as the Treasured King was in his majority. Other ministers, lay or clerical, sipped tea or gossiped as they waited for the Incarnation to begin the meeting.
The Treasured King scratched one bony shoulder, grinned, then assumed in an eyeblink a posture of deep meditation, placing hands in his lap with his skull-rosary wrapped around them. "Aum," he intoned. The others straightened and joined in the holy syllable, the Pranava, the creative sound whose vibrations built the universe. Then the Horse of the Air rose from the throat of the Gyalpo Rinpoche, the syllables Aum mane padme hum, and the others reached for their rosaries.
As he recited the rosary, Jigme tried to meditate on each syllable as it went by, comprehend the full meaning of each, the color, the importance, the significance. Aum, which was white and connected with the gods. Ma, which was blue and connected with the titans. Ne, which was yellow and connected with men. Pad, which was green and connected with animals. Me, which was red and connected with giants and demigods. Hum, which was black and connected with dwellers in purgatory. Each syllable a separate realm, each belonging to a separate species, together forming the visible and invisible universe.
"Hri!" called everyone in unison, signifying the end of the 108th repetition. The Incarnation smiled and asked the black statue for some tea. The stone demon scuttled across the thick carpet and poured tea into his golden bowl.
The demon looked up into the Incarnation's face. "Free me!" said the statue.
The Gyalpo Rinpoche looked at the statue. "Tell me truthfully. Have you achieved Enlightenment?"
The demon said nothing.
The Treasured King smiled again. "Then you had better give Dr. O'Neill some tea."
O'Neill accepted her tea, sipped, and dismissed the demon. It scuttled back to its pedestal.
"We should consider the matter of Ambassador !urq," said the Incarnation.
O'Neill put down her teacup. "I am opposed to her presence here. The Sang are an unenlightened and violent race. They conceive of life as a struggle against nature rather than search for Enlightenment. They have already conquered an entire species, and would subdue us if they could."
"That is why I have consented to the building of warships," said the Incarnation.
"From their apartments in the Nyingmapa monastery, the Sang now have access to the Library," said O'Neill. "All our strategic information is present there. They will use the knowledge against us."
"Truth can do no harm" Miss Taisuke.
"All truth is not vouchsafed to the unenlightened," said O'Neill. "To those unprepared by correct study and thought, truth can be a danger." She ges­tured with an arm, encompassing the world outside the Palace. "Who should know better than we, who live on Vajra? Haven't half the charlatans in all existence set up outside our walls to preach half-truth to the credulous, endangering their own Enlightenment and those of everyone who hears them?"
Jigme listened to O'Neill in silence. O'Neill and Daddy Carbajal were the leaders of the reactionary party, defenders of orthodoxy and the security of the realm. They had argued this point before.
"Knowledge will make the Sang cautious," said Jigme. "They will now know of our armament. They will now understand the scope of the human expansion, far greater than their own. We may hope this will deter them from attack."
"The Sang may be encouraged to build more weapons of their own," said Daddy Carbajal. "They are already highly militarized, as a way of keeping down their subject species. They may militarize further."
"Be assured they are doing so," said O'Neill. "Our own embassy is kept in close confinement on a small planetoid. They have no way of learning the scope of the Sang threat or sending this information to the Library. We, on the other hand, have escorted the Sang ambassador throughout human space and have shown her anything in which she expressed an interest."
"Deterrence," said Jigme. "We wished them to know how extensive our sphere is, that the conquest would be costly and call for more resources than they possess."
"We must do more than deter. The Sang threat should be eliminated, as were the threats of heterodox humanity during the Third and Fifth Incarna­tions."
"You speak jihad," said Miss Taisuke.
There was brief silence. No one, not even O'Neill, was comfortable with Taisuke's plainness.
"All human worlds are under the peace of the Library," said O'Neill. "This was accomplished partly by force, partly by conversion. The Sang will not conversion."
The Gyalpo Rinpoche cleared his throat. The others fell silent at once. The Incarnation had been listening in silence, his face showing concentration but no emotion. He always preferred to hear the opinions of others before expressing his own. 'The Third and Fifth Incarnations," he said, "did noth­ing to encourage the jihads proclaimed in their name. The Incarnations did not wish to accept temporal power."
"They did not speak against the holy warriors," said Daddy Carbajal.
The Incarnation's elderly face was uncommonly stern. His hands formed the teaching mudra. "Does not Shakyamuni speak in the Anguttara Nikaya of the three ways of keeping the body pure?" he asked. "One must not commit adultery, one must not steal, one must not kill any living creature. How could warriors kill for orthodoxy and yet remain orthodox?"
There was a long moment of uncomfortable silence. Only Daddy Carbajal, whose tautric Short Path teaching included numerous ways of dispatching his enemies, did not seem nonplused.
"The Sang are here to study us," said the Gyalpo Rinpoche. "We also study them."
"I view their pollution as a danger." Dr. O'Neill's face was stubborn. Miss Taisuke gave a brilliant smile. "Does not the Mahaparinirvana-sutra tell us that if we are forced to live in a difficult situation and among people of impure minds, if we cherish faith in Buddha we can ever lead them toward better actions?"
Relief fluttered through Jigme. Taisuke's apt quote, atop the Incarnation's sternness, had routed the war party.
"The Embassy will remain," said the Treasured King. "They will be given the freedom of Vajra, saving only the Holy Precincts. We must remember the oath of the Amida Buddha: 'Though I attain Buddhahood, I shall never be complete until people everywhere, hearing my name, learn right ideas about life and death, and gain that perfect wisdom that will keep their minds pure and tranquil in the midst of the world's greed and suffering."'
"What of Gyangtse, Rinpoche?" O'Neill's voice seemed harsh after the graceful words of Scripture.
The Gyalpo Rinpoche cocked his head and thought for a moment. Sud­denly the Incarnation seemed very human and very frail, and Jigme's heart surged with love for the old man.
"We will deal with that at the Picnic Festival," said the Incarnation.
From his position by the lake, Jigme could see tents and banners dotting the lower slopes of Tingsum like bright spring flowers. The Picnic Festival lasted a week, and unlike most of the other holidays had no real religious connec­tion. It was a week-long campout during which almost the entire population of the Diamond City and the surrounding monasteries moved into the open and spent their time making merry. Jigme could see the giant yellow hovertent of the Gyalpo Rinpoche sur­rounded by saffron-robed guards, the guards present not to protect the Treas­ured King from attackers, but rather to preserve his tranquillity against invasions by devout pilgrims in search of a blessing. The guards--monks armed with staves, their shoulders padded hugely to make them look more formidable--served the additional purpose of keeping the Sang away from the Treasured King until the conclusion of the festival, something for which Jigme was devoutly grateful. He didn't want any political confrontations disturbing the joy of the holiday. Fortunately Ambassador !urq seemed con­tent to wait until her scheduled appearance at a party given by the Incarnation on the final afternoon.