Damon Knight - Orbit 16
Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Damon Knight - Orbit 16» 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. Год выпуска: 1975, ISBN: 1975, Издательство: Harper & Row, Жанр: Фантастика и фэнтези, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.
- Название:Orbit 16
- Автор:
- Издательство:Harper & Row
- Жанр:
- Год:1975
- ISBN:0060124377
- Рейтинг книги:4 / 5. Голосов: 1
-
Избранное:Добавить в избранное
- Отзывы:
-
Ваша оценка:
- 80
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
Orbit 16: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация
Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Orbit 16»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.
Orbit 16 — 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 «Orbit 16», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.
Интервал:
Закладка:
“Who is it?” she shouted.
The doorknob’s movement stopped.
“Is it you, Jack? Is that you?”
An answering mumble. He slowly opened the door, slid in sideways, a little of him at a time. A withered old hand, sharp-pointed and lace-colored. Glimpses of an emaciated arm beneath a tattered shirtsleeve. Half of a dirty shirt and trousers, half of a wrinkled bearded face. The entire head came into full view: skin yellowed and spotted, completely bald, lines running into lines, sparse and speckled whiskers. The creature seemed to be Jack. It must be. But Jack as if his face had been made of candlewax which was now half melted. He stood before her, tottering on trembling legs. Shakily his hand rose in a hello salute. It was almost the wave of a returning hero.
Struggling to control her nervousness, Betty spoke in a guarded and toneless voice. “Where’ve you been?”
He shrugged a long, quaking shrug. “I have some memories, but dim and growing dimmer as I think of them. Broken sidewalks, thick forests, a strange city that left me messages, rocks falling from the sky. There was a dragon, I think. But I can’t concentrate, synthesize.”
He could hardly see her. His vision was impaired by glaze and other matter. She looked big now. She looked very big.
She beckoned to him and patted a cushion beside her. Without speaking, she kept patting it. His feet sliding along the floor, he walked toward her. It seemed a long way. She extended her hand, took his, and guided him onto the divan. Her hand remained in his. The skin of their hands had the texture of wood, of old boards; if one altered the grip, the other would get splinters.
“How do you feel?” Betty asked. “You feel okay?”
“No, don’t feel so good. Don’t feel okay.”
He looked at her with eyes so dark they reminded her of tarnished coins. She touched his grizzled beard, with the tips of her fingers wiped away some wetness by his mouth.
“You know,” she said, “I have this funny feeling that any minute now somebody is going to scream ‘Cut it and print it,’ and the walls are going to be struck, and the makeup men are going to stride in and tear off the plastic that’s our makeup and rip out the pillows from inside my costume and compliment us for a good job well done and escort us to our limousines, and you can say to me, ‘Nice working with you,’ and I can say to you, ‘Nice working with you,’ and we can bid farewell against a setting sun and drive off in highly polished Cord automobiles. Something like that could happen, couldn’t it?”
“Not bloody likely.”
She rested her head on his shoulder, felt herself drifting off to another nap. “My legs hurt like hell,” she muttered.
PRISON OF CLAY, PRISON OF STEEL
Henry-Luc Planchat
The tale of a little man who threw himself over a cliff; a dynasty of sick princes; and a captive sun . . .
I was a sun, and they made me their slave.
And I am here, alone, a prisoner in this body of steel, between these cold walls.
In this block of clay that imprisons my soul.
GOLEM
Made of sun and clay
Powerless, with this punched card
That holds me like a chain
Son of Heaven and the Machine
GOLEM
I was a sun, and they made me their slave.
They drew my soul into this block of clay and shut me up in this prison of steel, of integrated circuits, and they locked away my freedom with this punched card. They, the merchants, they bought my life and the lives of those I created.
He threw himself down from the top of the cliff, the one who sold me, but that did not set me free. And they, the merchants, they keep me here, in this machine, to watch over their city.
Watchman at their gates.
GOLEM
But I must love or die.
And they have taken away my love and condemned me to life.
They have mastered me—me, a sun. And they say:
“Here are the data, Golem!”
And I record them.
And they say: “Destroy our enemies!”
And I, who was drunk with love, must kill. And I cannot rebel against these bonds which hold me, from beyond space and time, in this block of clay. Then I wait (and time is no more than a hope) for them to need me again.
While the beings that I created are dying, far from me, in the glacial cold of space that overcomes them little by little, and while my body of energy and light, their only protection, so far away, is going out.
Oh, when will I rekindle the star-fire!
GOLEM
The city is called Pharès. For thousands of years it has been the greatest port of the Northern Ocean, and its ships go in search of precious cargoes even beyond the Mountains on the Rim of the Abyss. Its caravans cross the Great Plain to bring back goods found only in the most remote countries of the Old Continent. Pharès is famed for its great wealth, but famed also for being a city it is best not to attack, and all who have tried it have failed, for the City of Merchants is protected by Emidhin, the slave-sun, the chained god, the Golem.
Hyersios, the Prince of Pharès, opened the sanctuary door by means of the retractable key embedded in his left forefinger.
Hyersios, the seventeenth of the Sick Princes, was dressed as usual in a wide toga of green silk which brushed the floor, and his face and arms were painted with the blue insignia of his rank.
Hyersios, the Jailer of God, had a somber visage, and the lines traced by illness on his forehead made his expression even darker.
Hyersios, the Master of the West Provinces, was soon to die.
And he knew it. He closed the door quietly behind him. Here he was in the presence of Emidhin.
Or rather of Emidhin’s organs of communication, for the soul of the star was imprisoned in a block of clay behind twenty meters of metal. The sanctuary. A little room. Walls painted green. On the floor, white tiles. At the rear, metal. A few buttons and handles. A little loudspeaker, the voice of the sun. A little mobile camera, the eye of the sun.
Cold.
Hold me tighter, child.
The wind. Cold.
Take my coat, child, I don’t need it.
The dark . . .
Don’t be afraid, child, I am here, close to you. Sleep now. Tomorrow it will be light and we will go to the dune.
“Good morning, Emidhin,” said Hyersios, advancing toward the wall of metal.
“Greeting, Hyersios the Prince,” answered the prisoner.
Hyersios seated himself delicately on the only chair in the sanctuary. The pain in his back made him grimace slightly. The corner of his mouth rose a little, pressing his right cheek upward. The eye half-closed. A silent rictus. A contortion of pain and a resigned smile, mocking that illness that had fastened its claws in the dynasty of the Princes of Pharès. He leaned gently against the wooden back of the chair and for a moment had the illusion that it eased him. But the pain returned, stronger than before. He closed his eyes and slowly passed his hand over his forehead, rubbing the lines as if to make them disappear. The camera, motionless, gazed at him.
The Prince of Pharès opened his eyes again and breathed deeply. The green silk sleeve had slid back along his arm, revealing the blue marks that Freeyn had tattooed there when he had received his title, seven years before. The marks said things known to him alone, and sometimes he had an almost irresistible impulse to tell them to someone. To Emidhin, to a beggar in the North Quarter, to anyone. His hand fell slowly and rested on the punched cards which he held in the other hand, the left, the one that contained the key to the sanctuary. His fingers slid over the edges of the cards, then held them tightly. Hyersios leaned forward to place the little pile of cards on the cold tiles. The pain seized its opportunity. It gripped the right hand as it moved toward the floor, then climbed along the arm, turned around the shoulder and sprang onto his back, between the shoulder blades. Hyersios grimaced again, then straightened. He had thrown down the gauntlet to the illness that tormented him, and it had accepted the challenge. They understood each other very well. Each was lying in wait for the other. But the Prince of Pharès already knew the end of this silent duel. He straightened again and leaned against the back of the chair.
Читать дальшеИнтервал:
Закладка:
Похожие книги на «Orbit 16»
Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Orbit 16» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.
Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Orbit 16» 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.