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

do it to honor Her creation. When you eat, or drink, or swim, you'll do it to give thanks for Her
gifts." I nodded enthusiastically.
Daniel tidied everything away, even soaking up the puddles of water I'd left on the deck.
Back in the cabin, he recited from the Scriptures, passages that I'd never really understood
before, but which now all seemed to be about the Drowning, and the way I was feeling. It was as if
I'd opened the book and found myself mentioned by name on every page.
When Daniel fell asleep before me, for the first time in my life I didn't feel the slightest
pang of loneliness. The Daughter of God was with me: I could feel Her presence, like a flame
inside my skull, radiating warmth through the darkness behind my eyes.
Giving me comfort, giving me strength.
Giving me faith.




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The monastery was almost four milliradians northeast of our home grounds. Daniel and I took
the launch to a rendezvous point, and met up with three other small vessels before continuing. It
had been the same routine every tenth night for almost a year -- and Daniel had been going to the
Prayer Group himself for a year before that -- so the launch didn't need much supervision. Feeding
on nutrients in the ocean, propelling itself by pumping water through fine channels in its skin,
guided by both sunlight and Covenant's magnetic field, it was a perfect example of the kind of
legacy of the Angels that technology would never be able to match. Bartholomew, Rachel and Agnes
were in one launch, and they traveled beside us while the others skimmed ahead.
Bartholomew and Rachel were married, though they were only seventeen, scarcely older than
Daniel. Agnes, Rachel's sister, was sixteen. Because I was the youngest member of the Prayer
Group, Agnes had fussed over me from the day I'd joined. She said, "It's your big night tonight,
Martin, isn't it?" I nodded, but declined to pursue the conversation, leaving her free to talk to
Daniel.
It was dusk by the time the monastery came into sight, a conical tower built from at least
ten thousand hulls, rising up from the water in the stylized form of Beatrice's spaceship. Aimed
at the sky, not down into the depths. Though some commentators on the Scriptures insisted that the
spaceship itself had sunk forever, and Beatrice had risen from the water unaided, it was still the
definitive symbol of Her victory over Death. For the three days of Her separation from God, all
such buildings stood in darkness, but that was half a year away, and now the monastery shone from
every porthole.
There was a narrow tunnel leading into the base of the tower; the launches detected its scent
in the water and filed in one by one. I knew they didn't have souls, but I wondered what it would
have been like for them if they'd been aware of their actions. Normally they rested in the dock of
a single hull, a pouch of boatskin that secured them but still left them largely exposed. Maybe
being drawn instinctively into this vast structure would have felt even safer, even more
comforting, than docking with their home boat. When I said something to this effect, Rachel, in
the launch behind me, sniggered. Agnes said, "Don't be horrible."
The walls of the tunnel phosphoresced pale green, but the opening ahead was filled with white
lamplight, dazzlingly richer and brighter. We emerged into a canal circling a vast atrium, and
continued around it until the launches found empty docks.