"Dickson, Gordon - Dorsai 01 Dorsai Txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

"They're honest," said Eachan.

"That, too," said Kensie. "But what catches at me is the fact they're going some place, in their own way. If I had to pick one of the other worlds to be born onЧ"

"I would always be a soldier," said Mor.

"You think so now," said Kensie, and drank. "You think so now. But it's a wild civilization we have nowadays, with its personality split a dozen different ways by a dozen different cultures. Less than five hundred years ago the average man never dreamed of getting his feet off the ground. And the farther we go the faster. And the faster the farther."

"It's the Venus group forcing that, isn't it?" asked

Donal, his youthful reticence all burnt away in the hot fumes of the whiskey.

"Don't you think it," said Kensie. "Science is only one road to the future. Old Venus, Old MarsЧ Cassida, NewtonЧmaybe they've had their day. Project Blaine's a rich and powerful old man, but he doesn't know all the new tricks they're dreaming up on Mara and Kultis, or the FriendliesЧor Ceta, for that matter. Make it a point to take two good looks at things when you get out among the stars, you two young ones, because nine times out of ten that first glance will leave you fooled."

"Listen to him, boys," said Eachan from the top of the table. "Your uncle Kensie's a man and a half above the shoulders. I just wish I had as good advice to give you. Tell them, Kensie."

"Nothing stands still," said KensieЧand with those three words, the whiskey seemed to go to Donal's head in a rush, the table and the dark harsh-boned faces before him seemed to swim in the dimness of the dining room, and Kensie's voice came roaring at him as if from a great distance. "Everything changes, and that's what you must bear in mind. What was true yesterday about something may not be true today. So remember that and take no man's word about something without reservation, even mine. We have multiplied like the biblical locusts and spread out among the stars, splitting into different groups with different ways. Now, while we still seem to be rushing forward to where I have no idea, at a terrific rate, increasing all the time, I have this feelingЧas if we are all poised, hanging on the brink of something, something great and different and maybe terrible. It's a time to walk cautious, it is indeed."

"I'll be the greatest general that ever was!" cried Donal, and was startled as the rest to hear the words leap, stumbling and thick-tongued, but loud, from within him. "They'll seeЧI'll show them what a Dorsai can be!"

He was aware of them looking at him, though all their faces were blurred, exceptЧby some trick of visionЧthat of Kensie, diagonally across the table from him. Kensie was considering him with somber, reading eyes. Donal was conscious of his father's hand on his shoulder.

"Time to turn in," said his father.

"You'll seeЧ" said Donal, thickly. But they were all rising, picking up their glasses and turning to his father, who held his own glass up.

"May we all meet again," said his father. And they drank, standing. The remains of the whiskey in his glass flowed tasteless as water down Donal's tongue and throatЧand for a second everything cleared and be saw these tall men standing around him. Big, even for Dorsai, they were; even his brother Mor topping him by half a head, so that he stood like a half-grown boy among them. But at that same instant of vision he was suddenly wrung with a terrible tenderness and pity for them, as if he was the grown one, and they the children to be protected. He opened his mouth to say, for once in his life, how much he loved them, and how always he would be there to take care of themЧand then the fog closed down again; and he was only aware of Mor leading him stumblingly to his room.

Later, he opened his eyes in the darkness to become aware of a dim figure drawing the curtains of his room against the bright new light of the double moon, just risen. It was his mother; and with a sudden, reflexive action he rolled off his bed and lurched to her and put his hands on her shoulders.

"MotherЧ" he said.

She looked up at him with a pale face softened by the moonlight.

"Donal," she said tenderly, putting her arms around him. "You'll catch cold, Donal."

"MotherЧ" he said, thickly. "If you ever need me ... to take care of youЧ"

"Oh, my boy," she said, holding his hard young body tightly to her, "take care of yourself; my boy ... my boyЧ"

MERCENARY

Donal shrugged his shoulders in the tight civilian half-jacket and considered its fit as reflected in the mirror of his tiny, boxlike cabin. The mirror gave him back the image of someone almost a stranger. So much difference had three short weeks brought about in him, already. Not that he was so different, but his own appraisal of himself had changed; so that it was not merely the Spanish-style jacket, the skintight under-tunic, and the narrow trousers that disappeared into boots as black as all the rest of the costume, that made him unfamiliar to himselfЧbut the body within. Association with the men of other worlds had done this to his point of view. Their relative shortness had made him tall, their softness had made him hard, their untrained bodies had made his balanced and sure. Outbound from the Dorsai to Alpha

Centauri and surrounded by other Dorsai passengers, he had not noticed the gradual change. Only in the vast terminal on Newton, surrounded by their noisy thousands, had it come on him, all at once. And now, transhipped and outbound for the Friendlies, facing his first dinner on board a luxury-class liner where there would probably be no others from his world, he gazed at himself in the mirror and felt himself as suddenly come of age.

He went out through the door of his cabin, letting it latch quietly behind him, and turned right in the tightly narrow, metal-walled corridor faintly stale with the smell of dust from the carpet underfoot. He walked down its silence toward the main lounge and pushed through a heavy sealing door that sucked shut behind him, into the corridor of the next section.

He stepped into the intersection of the little cross corridor that led right and left to the washrooms of the section aheadЧand almost strode directly into a slim, tall girl in an ankle-length, blue dress of severe and conservative cut, who stood by the water fountain at the point of the intersection. She moved hastily back out of his way with a little intake of breath, backing into the corridor to the women's washroom. They stared at each other, halted, for a second.