"Daniel F. Galouye - Dark Universe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Galouye Daniel F)

broken lance, and protruding arrow shaft.
Owen squirmed out finally. "Well, we got the damned thing. _Now_ can we
go home?"
"As soon as I finish." Jared was already cutting out the tusks.
Soubats and Zivvers. One by one, the Lower and Upper Level people could
hope to eliminate the former. But what would prevail against the latter? What
_could_ prevail against creatures who used no clickstones but who,
nevertheless, knew everything about their surroundings? It was an uncanny
ability nobody could explain, except to say they were possessed of Cobalt or
Strontium.
Oh, well, Jared mused, prophecy held that man would vanquish all his
foes. He supposed that included the Zivvers also, although to him it had
always seemed that Zivvers were human too--after a fashion.
He finished prying out the first tusk and some remote recess of his mind
dredged up memories of childhood teachings:

_What is Light?_
_Light is a Spirit_.
_Where is Light?_
_If it weren't for the evil in man, Light would be everywhere_.
_Can we feel or hear Light?_
_No, but in the hereafter we shall all see Him_.

Rubbish! Anyway, no one could explain the word see. What did you do to
the Almighty when you seed Him?
He secured the tusks in his pouch and stood up, listening all around.
There was _something_ here that there might be less of than in the other
worlds--something man called "Darkness" and defined as sin and evil. But what
was it?
"Jared, come here!"
He used clickstones to establish Owen's location. The echoes brought an
impression of his friend standing by a thick pole that was leaning over at
such an angle as to be almost lying on the ground. He was feeling an object
dangling from the upthrust end--something round and brittle that hurled back
distinct, ringing tones.
"It's a _Bulb!_" Owen exclaimed. "Just like the Guardian's relic of
Light Almighty!"
Jared's memory resurrected more of the beliefs:
_So compassionate was the Almighty_ (it was the Guardian of the Way's
voice that came back now) _that when He banished man from Paradise, He sent
parts of Himself to be with us for a while. And He dwelled in many little
vessels like this Holy Bulb_.
There was a noise somewhere among the living quarters.
"Light!" Owen swore. "Do you smell _that?_"
Indeed Jared did smell it. It was so offensively alien that it made the
hair bristle on his neck. He rattled his clickstones desperately, backing off
all the while.
The echoes brought an incredible, jumbled pattern of sound--impressions
of something human, but not human; unbelievably evil because it was different,
yet arresting because it seemed to have a pair of arms and legs and a head and