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

the world was so foul as fish-dog-dung.
On the eighth morning of the storm, he fed them their final
rations of food. His food – baldo nuts, a little silk belly
meat, and blood-tea – would last a little longer, perhaps
another tenday, that is, if he didn't share it with the dogs.
And he would have to share, or else the dogs would have
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no strength for sled pulling. Of course, he could sacrifice
one of the dogs and butcher him up to feed the others, but the
truth is, he had always liked his dogs more than an Alaloi
should, and he dreaded the need for killing them. He whistled
to coax the sun out of his bed and prayed, 'O Sawel,
aparia-la!' But there was only snow and wind, the ragged,
hissing wind that devours even the sun.
One night, though, there was silence. Danlo awakened to
wonoon, the white silence of a new world waiting to take its
first breath. He sat up and listened a while before deciding
to get dressed. He slipped the light, soft underfur over his
head, and then he put on his shagshay furs, his trousers and
parka. He took care that his still sore membrum was properly
tucked to the left, into the pouch his found-mother had sewn
into his trousers. Next, he pulled his waterproof sealskin
boots snug over his calves. Then he crawled through the tunnel
where the dogs slept, dislodged the entrance snowblock, and
stepped outside.
The sky was brilliant with stars; he had never seen so many
stars. The lights in the sky were stars, and far off, falling
out into space where it curved black and deep, points of light
swirled together as densely as an ice-mist. The sight made him
instantly sad, instantly cold and numinous with longing. Who
could stare out into the vast light-distances and not feel a
little holy? Who could stand alone in the starlight and not
suffer the terrible nearness of infinity? Each man and woman is
a star, he remembered. Many stars, such as Behira, Alaula, and
Kalinda, he knew by name. To the north, he beheld the Bear,
Fish, and Thallow constellations; to the west, the Lone White
Wolf bared his glittering teeth. Two strange stars shined in
the east, balls of white light as big as moons, whatever moons
really were. (Soli had told him that the moons of the night
were other worlds, icy mirrors reflecting the light of the sun,
but how could this be?) Nonablinka and Shurablinka were strange
indeed, supernovae that had exploded years ago in one of the
galaxy's spiral arms. Danlo, of course, under-
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stood almost nothing of exploding stars. He called them simply
blinkans, stars which, from time to time, would appear from
nowhere, burn brightly for a while and then disappear into the
blackness from which they came. In the east, too, was the
strangest light in the sky. It had no name that he knew, but he
thought of it as the Golden Flower, with its rings of