A. van Vogt - The Empire of Isher

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «A. van Vogt - The Empire of Isher» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Город: New York, Год выпуска: 2000, ISBN: 2000, Издательство: Orb Books, Жанр: Фантастика и фэнтези, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

The Empire of Isher: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «The Empire of Isher»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

Two classic Van Vogt works,
and
form the complete story of Robert Hedrock and the Empire of Isher. They are about revolution through time travel, the right to bear arms, the end of the universe and the beginning of the next, and several other things per chapter.
“Nobody, possibly with the exception of the Bester of
, ever came close to matching Van Vogt for headlong, breakneck pacing, or for the electric, crackling paranoid tension with which he was capable of suffusing his work”, says Gardner Dozois.

The Empire of Isher — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «The Empire of Isher», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

“She’s still out, bold as you please. Pretty thing, too.”

The bolt off, Fara took the hard plate over to the polisher, and began patiently the long, careful task of smoothing away the crystals that heat had seared on the once shining metal. The soft throb of the polisher made the background to his next words, “Has anything been done?”

“Nope. The constable’s been told, but he says he doesn’t fancy being away from his family for another month or so, and paying the cost into the bargain.”

Fara contemplated that for a minute, as the polisher throbbed on. His voice shook with suppressed fury when he said finally, “So they’re letting them get away with it. It’s all been as clever as hell. Can’t they see that they mustn’t give an inch before these…these transgressors? It’s like giving countenance to sin.”

From the corner of his eye, he noticed that there was a grin on the face of the other. It struck Fara suddenly that the man was enjoying his anger. And there was something else in that grin—a secret knowledge. Fara pulled the engine plate away from the polisher. He faced the ne’er-do-well. “Naturally, that sin part wouldn’t worry you much.”

“Oh,” said the man nonchalantly, “the hard knocks of life make people tolerant. For instance, after you know the girl better, you yourself will probably come to realize that there’s good in all of us.”

It was not so much the words, as the I’ve-got-secret-information tone that made Fara snap, “What do you mean—after I get to know the girl better! I won’t even speak to the brazen creature.”

“One can’t always choose,” the other said with enormous casualness. “Suppose he brings her home.”

“Suppose who brings who home?” Fara spoke irritably. “Castler, you—” He stopped. A dead weight of dismay plumped into his stomach; his whole being sagged. “You mean—” he said.

“I mean,” replied Castler with a triumphant leer, “that the boys aren’t letting a beauty like her be lonesome. And, naturally, your son was the first to speak to her.” He finished: “They’re walkin’ together now on Second Avenue, comin’ this way.”

“Get out of here!” Fara roared. “And stay away from me with your gloating. Get out!”

The man hadn’t expected such an ignominious ending. He flushed scarlet, then went out, slamming the door. Fara stood for a moment, stiffly. Then, with jerky movements he shut off his power and went out into the street. The time to put a stop to that kind of thing was—now!

He had no clear plan, simply a determination to end an impossible situation. It was all mixed up with his anger against Cayle. How could he have had such a worthless son, he who paid his debts and worked hard, and tried to be decent and live up to the highest standards of the empress?

He wondered if there mightn’t be bad blood on Creel’s side, not from her mother, of course—Fara added the qualification hastily. There was a fine, hard-working woman, who would leave Creel a tidy sum one of these days. But Creel’s father had disappeared when she was a child.

And now, Cayle with this weapon shop girl, who had let herself be picked up—he saw them as he turned the corner onto Second Avenue. They were heading away from Fara. As he came up, the girl was saying:

“You have the wrong idea about us. A person like you can’t get a job in our organization. You belong in the Imperial service, where they can use young men of good appearance and ambition.”

Fara was too intent for her words to mean anything. He said harshly, “Cayle!”

The couple turned, Cayle with the measured unhurriedness of a young man who had gone a long way on the road to acquiring steel-like nerves; the girl was quicker, but dignified.

Fara had a feeling that his anger was self-destroying, but the violence of his emotions ended that thought even as it came. He said thickly, “Cayle, get home at once.”

He was aware of the girl looking at him curiously from strange, gray-green eyes. No shame, he thought, and his rage mounted, driving away the alarm that came at the sight of the flush that was creeping into Cayle’s cheeks.

The flush faded into a pale, tight-lipped anger as Cayle half-turned to the girl and said, “This is the childish old fool I’ve got to contend with. Fortunately, we seldom see each other. We don’t even eat our meals at the same table. What do you think of him?”

The girl smiled impersonally. “Oh, we know Fara Clark. He’s the mainstay of the empress in Glay.”

“Yes,” the boy sneered. “You ought to hear him. He thinks we’re living in heaven, and the empress is the divine power. The worst part of it is that there’s no chance of his ever getting that stuffy look wiped off his face.”

They walked off; and Fara stood there. The extent of what had happened drained anger from him as if it had never been. There was the realization that he had made a mistake. But he couldn’t quite grasp it. For long now, since Cayle had refused to work in his shop, he had felt this building up to a climax. Suddenly, his own uncontrollable ferocity stood revealed as a partial product of that deeper problem. Only, now that the smash was here, he didn’t want to face it.

All through the day in his shop, he kept pushing it out of his mind, kept thinking: Would this go on now, as before, Cayle and he living in the same house, not even looking at each other when they met, going to bed at different times, getting up, Fara at 6:30, Cayle at noon? Would that go on through all the days and years to come?

Creel was waiting for him when he arrived home. She said: “Fara, he wants you to loan him five hundred credits, so that he can go to Imperial City.”

Fara nodded wordlessly. He brought the money back to the house the next morning, and gave it to Creel, who took it into Cayle’s bedroom.

She came out a minute later. “He says to tell you goodbye.”

When Fara came home that evening Cayle was gone. He wondered whether he ought to feel relieved. But the only sensation that finally came was a conviction of disaster.

Chapter IV

He had been caught in a trap. Now he was escaping.

Cayle did not think of his departure from the village of Glay as the result of a decision. He had wanted to leave for so long that the purpose seemed part of his body hunger, like the need to eat or drink. But the impulse had grown dim and undefined. Baffled by his father, he had turned an unfriendly eye on everything that was of the village. And his obstinate defiance was matched at every turn by the obdurate qualities of his prison—until now.

Just why the cage had opened was obscure. There was the weapon shop girl, of course. Slender, her gray-green eyes intelligent, her face well-formed and carrying about her an indefinable aura of a person who had made many successful decisions, she had said—he remembered the words as if she were still speaking them—“Why, yes, I’m from Imperial City. I’m going back there Thursday afternoon.”

This Thursday afternoon she was going to the great city, while he remained in Glay. He couldn’t stand it. He felt ill, savage as an animal in his desire to go also. It was that, more than his quarrel with his father, which made him put pressure on his mother for money. Now, he sat on the local carplane to Ferd, dismayed to find that the girl was not aboard.

At the Ferd Air Center, waiting for the Imperial City plane, he stood at various vantage points and looked for Lucy Rail. But the crowds jamming toward the constant stream of interstate planes defeated even his alert eyes. All too soon his own vast machine glided in for a landing. That is, it seemed too soon until he saw the plane coming toward him. A hundred feet high at the nose, absolutely transparent, it shimmered like a jewel as it drew up in the roadstead.

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «The Empire of Isher»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «The Empire of Isher» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


Отзывы о книге «The Empire of Isher»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «The Empire of Isher» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x