"Gene Wolfe - Memorare" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

Memorare
by Gene Wolfe

Fans of the American reality TV show "Survivor" might be amused to know that
the winner this past season listed The Book of the New Sun among his favorite
books. But this information should not surprise any of our readers. Reading Gene
Wolfe is a basic survival skill for life in our times.
****
The moment March Wildspring spotted the corpses, he launched himself across the
shadowy mortuary chamber. He had aimed for the first, but with suit jets wide open
he missed it and caught the third, flattening himself against it and rolling over with it
so that it lay upon him.
Bullets would have gotten him; but this was a serrated blade pivoting from a
crevice in the wall. Had it hit, it would have shredded his suit somewhere near the
waist.
He would have suffocated before he froze. The thought failed to comfort him
as he huddled under the freeze-dried corpse and strove not to look into its eyes.
How much had his digicorder gotten? He wanted to rub his jaw, but was
frustrated by his helmet. Not enough, surely. He would have to make a dummy good
enough to fool the mechanism, return with it, and....
Or use one of these corpses.
"Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known...."
The half-recalled words came slowly, limping.
"That anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought
your intercession, was left unaided."
There was more, but he had forgotten it. He sighed, cleared his throat, and
touched the sound switch. "These memorials can be dangerous, like this one. As
I've told you, this isn't the big one. The big one we call Number Nineteen is an
asteroid ten times the diameter of this, which means it could have a thousand times
the interior volume. Frankly, I'm scared of it. We may save it for last."
He had a harsh, unpleasant speaking voice. He knew it; but it was the only
voice he had, and the software that might have smoothed and sweetened it cost more
than he could afford. Back on his hopper, he would edit what he had said into a
script for Kit. She had a voice....
"There are at least five sects and cults whose members believe the deceased
will be served though all eternity by those who lose their lives at his or her memorial.
Some claim to be offshoots of major faiths. Some are openly satanic. We haven't
seen enough to identify the bunch that built this one, and frankly I doubt we will."
 If the show sold, if it made one hell of a lot of money, it might--it just
might--be possible to buy or build a robotic probe. Of course, if that probe were
destroyed....
He began wiggling out from under the corpse and sliding under the next.
Nothing happened.
"Memorare...." He had read the Latin twice, perhaps. It was as lost as the
English now. No, more lost.
The blade was set to rupture the suit of anyone who came in. That much was
plain. What about going out?
When he had the first corpse steady and vertical, a gentle shove sent it across
the chamber in a position that looked practically lifelike.
Nothing. No blade, no reaction of any kind as far as he could see.