"Alan Dean Foster - Flinx 11 - Running from the Deity" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

ancient HurтАЩrikku enemies half a million years ago. Like those who had hastily and unwisely
propounded it, the all-destroying plague had long since consumed itself, leaving in its wake only empty
skies gazing forlornly down on dead worlds. Here and there, in a few spatial corners miraculously
passed over by the plague, life had survived. Life, and memories of the all-consuming horror that had
inexplicably skipped over them. No wonder the inhabitants of such isolated yet fortunate systems gazed
up at the night sky with fear instead of expectation, and clung tightly to their isolated home systems.

Somewhere within that immense and largely vacant chunk of cosmos, the re-energized Tar-Aiym

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weapons platform had gone searching for instructions. Hunting for those who had made it. That there
were none such to be found anywhere any longer was not sufficient to discourage it from looking. Such
was the way of the machine mind. A mind he somehow had to make contact with once again. A mind he
had somehow to persuade.

A hard task it was going to be, if he continued to have trouble convincing himself that the enterprise he
was engaged in had not even the remotest chance of success.

When applied to most people, the expression have an open mind was merely rhetorical. Not so with
Flinx. In fact, for much of his life he had prayed for the ability to have one that was closed.
Intermittently and uncontrollably exposed to the emotions of any and every sentient around him, he
threatened to drown in a sea of sentiment and sensation whenever he visited a developed world. Feelings
flooded in on him in endless waves of exhilaration, despair, hope, remorse, anger, love, and everything
in between. With each passing year he seemed to become more sensitive, more alert to those inner
expressions of thinking beings. Not long ago, he had unexpectedly acquired the ability to project as well
as receive emotions. This capability had proven useful in his search for the truth of his origins as well as
in escaping those who intended him harm.

Yet for all his escalating skills, he had yet to learn how to master them. Defined by their erraticism, he
had long ago decided that they might forever be beyond his control. That did not keep him from trying.
Not only because a Talent that was wild was of far less usefulness than one that could be managed, but
because the severe headaches he had suffered from since adolescence continued to grow more frequent,
and more intense. His ability might be his saviorтАФas well as that of billions of other sentient beings. It
might also kill him. He had no choice but to continue wrestling with it, and with what he was, because
he was special.

He would have given up everything just to be normal.

Sensing her masterтАЩs melancholy, Pip rose from her resting place on his shoulder, the deep-throated
humming of her wings louder than the ambient music that was being played by the Teacher . Circling
him twice, she settled down on his other shoulder, wings furled tightly against her slim, brightly colored
body. Wrapping herself around the back of his neck, she squeezed gently and affectionately, trying to
reassure him. Reaching up with his left hand, he absently stroked the back of her head. Small slitted eyes
closed in contentment. Alaspinian minidrags did not purr, but the strength of the empathetic bond
between him and his scaly companion managed to convey something like the emotional equivalent.

Leaning back in the command chair, Flinx closed his own eyes and tried to open his unique mind
further, to reach outward in all directions. Though he could readily identify the target he sought, he