"Greg Egan - Oceanic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Egan Greg)

thoughts. I couldn't remember anything from the Scriptures word for word, but the gist of the most
important part started running through my mind.
After living in Her body for thirty years, and persuading all the Angels to become mortal
again, Beatrice had gone back up to their deserted spaceship and flown it straight into the ocean.
When Death saw Her coming, he took the form of a giant serpent, coiled in the water, waiting. And
even though She was the Daughter of God, with the power to do anything, She let Death swallow Her.
That's how much She loved us.
Death thought he'd won everything. Beatrice was trapped inside him, in the darkness, alone.
The Angels were flesh again, so he wouldn't even have to wait for the stars to fall before he
claimed them.
But Beatrice was part of God. Death had swallowed part of God. This was a mistake. After
three days, his jaws burst open and Beatrice came flying out, wreathed in fire. Death was broken,
shriveled, diminished.
My limbs were numb but my chest was burning. Death was still strong enough to hold down the
damned. I started thrashing about blindly, wasting whatever oxygen was left in my blood, but
desperate to distract myself from the urge to inhale.
Please Holy Beatrice --
Please Daniel --
Luminous bruises blossomed behind my eyes and drifted out into the water. I watched them
curling into a kind of vortex, as if something was drawing them in.
It was the mouth of the serpent, swallowing my soul. I opened my own mouth and made a
wretched noise, and Death swam forward to kiss me, to breathe cold water into my lungs.
Suddenly, everything was seared with light. The serpent turned and fled, like a pale timid
worm. A wave of contentment washed over me, as if I was an infant again and my mother had wrapped
her arms around me tightly. It was like basking in sunlight, listening to laughter, dreaming of
music too beautiful to be real. Every muscle in my body was still trying to prise my lungs open to
the water, but now I found myself fighting this almost absentmindedly while I marveled at my
strange euphoria.




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Cold air swept over my hands and down my arms. I raised myself up to take a mouthful, then
slumped down again, giddy and spluttering, grateful for every breath but still elated by something
else entirely. The light that had filled my eyes was gone, but it left a violet afterimage
everywhere I looked. Daniel kept winding until my head was level with the guard rail, then he
clamped the winch, bent down, and threw me over his shoulder.
I'd been warm enough in the water, but now my teeth were chattering. Daniel wrapped a towel
around me, then set to work cutting the cord. I beamed at him. "I'm so happy!" He gestured to me
to be quieter, but then he whispered joyfully, "That's the love of Beatrice. She'll always be with
you now, Martin."
I blinked with surprise, then laughed softly at my own stupidity. Until that moment, I hadn't
connected what had happened with Beatrice at all. But of course it was Her. I'd asked Her to come
into my heart, and She had.
And I could see it in Daniel's face: a year after his own Drowning, he still felt Her
presence.
He said, "Everything you do now is for Beatrice. When you look through your telescope, you'll