"Harlan Ellison - Troublemakers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ellison Harlan)

the barrier. Lizette clung to me, Paul held me tight as I trembled with terror and the cold of that inner
circle still frosting my flesh.

The great transparent claimers stood silently, watching, waiting, as if content to allow us our moments of
final decision. But their impatience could be felt in the air, a soft purring, like the death rattle always in the
throat of a cat. тАЬCome back! Not for me . . . donтАЩt do it for me . . . itтАЩs not fair!тАЭ

PaulтАЩs unicorn turned his head and looked at us.

My friend of starless nights, when we had gone sailing together through the darkness. My friend who had
walked with me on endless tours of empty places. My friend of gentle nature and constant
companionship. Until Lizette, my friend, my only friend, my familiar assigned to an onerous task, who had
come to love me and to whom I had belonged, even as he had belonged to me.

I could not bear the hurt that grew in my chest, in my stomach; my head was on fire, my eyes burned with
tears first for Paul, and now for the sweetest creature a God had ever sent to temper a manтАЩs anguish . . .
and for myself. I could not bear the thought of never knowing тАФ as Paul had known it тАФ the silent
company of that gentle, magical beast.
But he turned back, and moved to them, and they took that as final decision, and the great transparent
claimers moved in around him, and their quickglass hands reached down to touch him, and for an instant
they seemed to hesitate, and I called out, тАЬDonтАЩt be afraid . . .тАЭ and my unicorn turned his head to look
across the mist of potency for the last time, and I saw hewas afraid, but not as much as he would have
been ifwe had not been there.

Then the first of them touched his smooth, silvery flank and he gave a trembling sigh of pain. A ripple ran
down his hide. Not the quick flesh movement of ridding himself of a fly, but a completely alien, unnatural
tremor, containing in its swiftness all the agony and loss of eternities. A sigh went out from PaulтАЩs unicorn,
though he had not uttered it.

We could feel the pain, the loneliness. My unicorn with no time left to him. Ending. All was now a final
ending; he had stayed with me, walked with me, and had grown to care for me, until that time when he
would be released from his duty by that special God; but now freedom was to be denied him; an ending.

The great transparent claimers all touched him, their ice fingers caressing his warm hide as we watched,
helpless, LizetteтАЩs face buried in PaulтАЩs chest. Colors surged across my unicornтАЩs body, as if by
becoming more intense the chill touch of the claimers could be beaten off. Pulsing waves of rainbow color
that lived in his hide for moments, then dimmed, brightened again and were bled off. Then the colors
leaked away one by one, chroma weakening: purple-blue, manganese violet, discord, cobalt blue, doubt,
affection, chrome green, chrome yellow, raw sienna, contemplation, alizarin crimson, irony, silver,
severity, compassion, cadmium red, white.

They emptied him . . . he did not fight them . . . going colder and colder . . . flickers of yellow, a whisper
of blue, pale as white . . . the tremors blending into one constant shudder . . . the wonderful golden eyes
rolled in torment, went flat, brightness dulled, flat metal . . . the platinum hoofs caked with rust . . . and he
stood, did not try to escape, gave himself for us . . . and he was emptied. Of everything. Then, like the
claimers, we could see through him. Vapors swirled within the transparent husk, a fogged glass,
shimmering . . . then nothing. And then they absorbed even the husk.

The chill blue light faded, and the claimers grew indistinct in our sight. The smoke within them seemed
thicker, moved more slowly, horribly, as though they had fed and were sluggish and would go away,