David Zindell - The Idiot Gods

‘Have I not told you many times,’ Unukalhai said, ‘that we must become insane? You did not believe me!’

‘I did not want to believe you!’

‘But you must, Arjuna. You must watch the humans, night and day.’ He let out a long, painful whistle. ‘You must drink in their sounds and dwell with them in your dreams. You must meditate on what it is to be human and try to become human in your own heart.’

‘I cannot! I do not want to!’

I pointed out that he had chided Alkurah and the Moonsingers for internalizing the humans’ cruelty, which they inflicted with raking teeth and rancor upon Baby Electra and the other whales.

‘And cruel you must become,’ Unukalhai told me, ‘to live among the humans. But not mindlessly and compulsively cruel, as they are cruel. You must not allow yourself to become helplessly and indiscriminately infected. Rather, you must choose your cruelties with a will and a design, and wear them upon yourself as the humans do their clothes. In such cruelty, you must apply the same art as you once did in creating the tone poems of your great composition.’

Something in the crystallization of his conception of cruelty sounded a warning in me. Something in Unukalhai – a poisoning of his blood or a worm in his brain – did the same. I sensed that he was keeping a secret, deep and dark, which gnawed at him and worked its way into every tissue and organ. What this secret might be, I could not guess and he did not say.

‘I do not want to become cruel,’ I told him. ‘I do not want the humans to touch my heart with their heartless hands.’

‘But they already have touched you, have they not?’

‘As they have touched you?’

‘Yes, Arjuna – in exactly the same way.’

‘I am sorry,’ I said.

‘Save your compassion for yourself – you will need it.’

‘Perhaps,’ I said. I floated at the surface of the little pool where we were being kept that night and opened my blowhole to take in a breath. ‘Perhaps I will suffer here like a blue whale being torn apart by sharks, over years instead of days. I will not, however, allow myself to become like the humans.’

‘You will not be able to help yourself.’

‘Yes, I will.’

‘You cannot escape them, any more than you can dislodge the harpoon they put in you when they speared your friend Pherkad.’

‘There is no harpoon in me!’ My voice exploded out of me in an unexpected and embarrassing shout, which thundered back and forth across the tiny pool. ‘Only my grandmother is there, and Alnitak, and my mother, and—’

‘The rest of your family, whom you will never see again. If you wish your life were otherwise, you will make yourself even more unhappy.’

‘I will see them again!’

‘No, you never will. The humans will make you do feats along with Alkurah, Salm, Electra, and me. You will see us , all the days of your life, until either we or you are dead.’

‘No, no, no!’ I beat the water with my flukes, trying to drive into this fundamental substance a little of my filthy rage. ‘I will never do the humans’ feats. I want nothing more to do with humans. I will escape them – and their pools of horror.’

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.