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

'My father? My blood father? What was his name?' He took
Soli's hand and whispered, 'Who is my blessed father?'
But Soli didn't seem to hear him. He began to speak of things
that Danlo couldn't comprehend. He told of the galaxy's many
wonders, of the great black hole at the core, and of that
brilliant, doomed region of the galaxy called the Vild. Human
beings, he explained, had learned to make stars explode into
supernovae; even as they spoke together, beneath the dying sky,
ten thousand spheres of light were expanding outward to the
ends of the universe. 'So many stars,' Soli said, 'so much
light.'
Danlo, of course, couldn't comprehend that this wild
starlight would eventually reach his world and kill all of the
plants and animals on Icefall's surface. He knew only that Soli
was dying, and seeing visions of impossible things.
'Sir, who is my father?' he repeated.
But now Soli had lapsed into a private, final vision, and
his words made no sense at all. The rings,' Soli forced out.
The rings. Of light. The rings of eternity, and I ... I, oh, it
hurts, it hurts, it hurts!'
Quite possibly he was trying to tell Danlo that he was his
grandfather, but he failed, and soon his lips fell blue and
silent, and he would never utter any words again.
'Soli, Soli!'
Again, Soli began gasping for air, and very soon he stopped
breathing altogether. He lay still with his eyes fixed on the
stars. Danlo was surprised at how quickly he had died.
'Soli, mi alasharia la shantih Devaki.'
How many times, Danlo wondered, had he said that prayer? How
many times must he say it again?
38
He closed Soli's eyes and kissed them. 'Shantih, Soli, may
your spirit find the way to the other side.'
Then the enormity of all that had occurred during the past
days overwhelmed him. He jumped up and threw off his fur,
standing naked to the world. 'No!' he cried out. 'No!' But
there was no one to listen to him. The fires had burnt low, dim
orange glimmerings lost into the blackness of night. It was
very cold. He watched the fires die, and he began to shiver
violently. 'No,' he whispered, and the wind stole the breath
from his lips and swept it away. His body hurt so urgently that
he welcomed numbness, but next to the pain of his spirit, it
was almost nothing. How would he live now, he wondered, what
would he do? He had been cut, and part of him had died, and so
he was no longer of the onabara, the once-born children. But
until he completed his passage, he would remain unfinished,
like a spearpoint without an edge; he would never be of the
diabara, the twice-born men. And because he knew that only a
twice-born man who had learned the whole Song of Life could be
wholly alive, he almost despaired.