"David Zindell - Requiem of Homo Sapiens 01 - The Broken God" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zindell David)

'No, that would not help.'
'Does it hurt? Oh, sir, what can I do?'
'I ... believe,' Soli said, 'I believe that Haidar knew of a
cure, but he has gone over, hasn't he? All the men – the
women, too.'
Danlo blinked away the pain in his eyes, and he found that he
could see things very clearly. And on Soli's face, in his
tired, anguished eyes, there was only death. Soli would go
over soon, he knew, there could be no help for
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that. It was shaida for a man to die too soon, but Soli's
death would not be shaida because it was clear that he was
dying at the right time.
'Sir,' he said, 'ti-alasharia, you too, why, why?'
'Yes,' Soli said. And then he stretched out his hand and
pointed upwards. 'The stars, you must be told about the
stars.'
Danlo looked up through the bitterly cold air at the heavens.
He pulled the shagshay fur tightly around himself, let out a
long steamy breath, and said, 'The stars are eyes of the Old
Ones. Even a child knows that.'
'No, the stars are ... something other.'
'Does the Song of Life tell of the stars?'
Soli coughed deeply a few times; it seemed that he might
begin gasping again. 'Yes, the Song of Life, but that is only
one song, the song of our people. There are other songs. The
stars shine with eyelight, yes, but that is just a metaphor. A
symbol, like the symbols for numbers we used to draw in the
snow. There is an otherness about the stars that I... I must
tell you.'
'Please, sir.'
'This will be hard to explain.'
'Please.'
Soli sighed, then said, 'Each star is like Sawel, the sun. A
burning, a fusion of hydrogen into light. Five hundred billion
fusion fires in this galaxy alone. And the galaxies ... so
many. Who could have dreamed the universe would make so many?'
Danlo pressed his knuckles against his forehead. He felt
sick inside, dizzy and disoriented. Once, when he was eight
years old, he and Haidar had been caught out on the sea in a
morateth. The sky had closed in, white and low over the endless
whiteness of the ice. After ten days, he hadn't been able to
distinguish right from left, up from down. Now he felt lost
again, as if a morateth of the spirit were crushing him under.
'I do not understand.'
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'The stars are like fires burning across space. Across the
black, frozen sea. Men can cross from star to star in boats
called lightships. Such men – and women – are called pilots.
Your father was a pilot, Danlo.'