"Sara Douglass - Redemption 2 - Pilgrim" - читать интересную книгу автора (Douglass Sara)

and with cargo that the crews preferred not to think about. When they volunteered for this mission, hadn't
they been told that once they'd found somewhere to "dispose" of the cargo they could come home?
But now, the crew of The Ark wondered, what would be disposed of? The cargo? Or them?
It might have helped if the commander had come up with something helpful. But Devereaux seemed
peculiarly unconcerned, saying only that the vibrations soothed his soul and that the ships, if they no longer
responded to human command, at least seemed to know what they were doing.
And now here he was, tapping at that keyboard as if he actually had a purpose in life. None of them had a
purpose any more. They were as good as dead. Everyone knew that. Why not Devereaux?
"What are you doing, sir?" Chris asked. He had picked up the fork again, and it quivered in his over-tight
grip.
"I..." Devereaux frowned as if listening intently to something, then his fingers rattled over the keys. "I am
just writing this down."
"Writing what down, sir?" the other officer asked, his voice tight.
Devereaux turned slightly to look at them, his eyes wide. "Don't you hear it? Lovely music . . . enchanted
music ... listen, it vibrates through the ship. Don't you feel it?"
"No," Chris said. He paused, uncomfortable. "Why write it down, sir? For who? What is the bloody point
of writing it down?"
Devereaux smiled. "I'm writing it down for Katie, Chris. A song book for Katie."
Chris stared at him, almost hating the man. "Katie is dead, sir. She has been dead at least twelve thousand
years. I repeat, what is the fucking point!"
Devereaux's smile did not falter. He lifted a hand and placed it over his heart. "She lives here, Chris. She
always will. And in writing down these melodies, I hope that one day she will live to enjoy the music as
much as I do."
It was then that The Ark, in silent communion with the others, decided to let Devereaux live.
The speckled blue eagle clung to rocks under the overhang of the river cliffs a league south of Carlon. He
shuddered. Nothing in life made sense any more. He had been drifting the thermals, digesting his noonday
meal of rats, when a thin grey mist had enveloped him and sent despair stringing through his veins.
He could not fight it, and had not wanted to. His wings crippled with melancholy, he'd plummeted from the
sky, uncaring about his inevitable death.
It had seemed the best solution to his useless life.
Chasing rats? Ingesting them. Why?
In his mad, uncaring tumble out of control, the eagle struck the cliff face. The impact drove the breath from
him, and he thought it may also have broken one of his breast bones, but even in the midst of despair, the
eagle's talons scrabbled automatically for purchase among the rocks.
And then . . . then the despair had gone. Evaporated.
The eagle blinked and looked about.
It was cold here in the shadow of the rocks, and he wanted to warm himself in the sun again тАФ but he
feared the grey-fingered enemy that awaited him within the thermals. In the open air.
What was this grey miasma? What had caused it?
4
He cocked his head to one side, his eyes unblinking, considering. Gryphon? Was this their mischief?
No. The Gryphon had long gone, and their evil he would have felt ripping into him, not seeping in with this
grey mist's many-fingered coldness. No, this was something very different.
Something worse.
The sun was sinking now, only an hour or two left until dusk, and the eagle did not want to spend the night
clinging to this cliff face.
He cocked his head тАФ the grey haze had evaporated.
With fear тАФ a new sensation for this most ancient and wise of birds тАФ he cast himself into the air. He rose
over the Nordra, expecting any minute to be seized again by that consuming despair.
But there was nothing.