"Avram Davidson - The House the Blakeneys Built" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Avram)

very soon. We will be glad of your help."

Old Whitey Bill came for another look to, hobbling on his canestick. "We
descend," he said, putting his face very close to Robert's, "we descend from
the Captains. Hasn't heard of them, you? Elses not heard? Funny. Funnyfunny.
We descend, look to. From the Captains. Captain Tom Blakeney. And his wives.
Captain Bill Blakeney. And his wives. Brothers, they. Jinnie, Mary, Captain
Tom's wives. Other Mary, Captain Bob's wife. Had another wife, but we don't
remember it, us, her name. They lived, look to. Starside. You, too? Mum, you?
A hey, Starside?"

Robert nodded. "When?" he asked. "When did they come from Starside? The
brothers."

Night had fallen, but no lights were lit. Only the dancing flames, steadily
fed, of the burning, with chunks and chunks of fat and greasy burnwood,
flickered and illuminated the great room. "Ah, when," said Old Red Tom,
thrusting up to the chairseat. "When we children, old Blakeneys say, a hey,
five hundredyear. Longlong."

Old Little Mary said, suddenly, "They funnywalk. They funnytalk. But, oh, they
funnylook, too!"

"A baby. A baby. Grows a baby, soon."

And two or three little baby Blakeneys, like shrunken versions of their
elders, gobbled and giggled and asked to see the Starside baby. The big ones
laughed, told them, soon.
"Five hundred тАж" Hayakawa drowsed. He snapped awake. "The four of us," he
said, "were heading in our boat for the Moons of Lor. Have youтАФno, I see, you
never have. It's a short trip, really. But something happened to us, I don't
know тАж how to explain it тАж we ran into something тАж something that wasn't
there. A warp? A hole? That's silly, I know, butтАФit was as though we felt the
boat drop, somehow. And then, after that, our instruments didn't work and we
saw we had no celestial references тАж not a star we knew. What's that phrase,
'A new Heaven and a new Earth?' We were just able to reach her. Blakeneyworld,
as you call it."

Sparks snapped and flew. Someone said, "Sleepytime." And then all the
Blakeneys went away and then Hayakawa slept.

It was washtime when the four woke up, and all the Blakeneys around The House,
big and little, were off scrubbing themselves and their clothes. "I guess that
food on the table is for us," Ezra said. "I will assume it is for us. Say
grace, Robert. I'm hungry."

Afterwards they got up and looked around. The room was big and the far end so
dark, even with sunshine pouring in through the open shutters, that they could
hardly make out the painting on the wall. The paint was peeling, anyway, and a
crack like a flash of lightening ran through it; plaster or something or the