"Joe Haldeman - Angel of Light" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

though harder to understand.
Much of the content was religious. "Horatius at the Bridge" was about a madman who could find the
"soul" of a bridge and bring it down with the notes from a flute. "Terror in the Dust" and "The Devouring
Tide" described scientists who were destroyed because they tried to play GodтАФthe first by giving
intelligence to ants and then treating them as if he were an almighty deity, and the second, grandly, by
attempting to create a new universe, with himself as Allah. The last short story, "God of Light," had a
machine that was obviously Shaytan, trying to tempt the humans into following it into destruction.

The language was crude and at times bizarre, though of course part of that was just a reflection of the
technological culture those writers and readers endured together. Life is simpler and more pure now, at
least on this side of the city walls. The Kafir may still have books like this.

That gave me an idea. Perhaps this sort of thing would be rare and sought after in their world. I shouldn't
accept Kafir moneyтАФthough people do, often enoughтАФbut perhaps I could trade it for something more
appropriate for a Christmas gift. Barter could be done without an intermediary, too, and frankly I was not
eager for my imam to know that I had this questionable book in my possession.

Things are less rigid now, but I sharply remember the day, more than forty years ago, when my father
had to burn all of his books. We carried box after box of them to the parking lot in front of the church,
where they were drenched with gasoline and set afire. The smell of gasoline, rare now, always brings that
back.

He was allowed to keep two books, a New Koran and a New Bible. When a surprise search party later
found an old Q'ran in his study, he had to spend a week, naked, in a cage in that same spotтАФthe jumble
of fractured concrete in the middle of the church parking lotтАФwith nothing but water, except a piece of
bread the last day.

(It was an old piece of bread, rock-hard and moldy. I remember how he thanked the imam, carefully
brushed off the mold, and managed to stay dignified, gnawing at it with his strong side teeth.)

He told them he kept the old book because of the beauty of the writing, but I knew his feelings went
deeper than that: he thought the Q'ran in any language other than Arabic was just a book, not holy. As a
boy of five, I was secretly overjoyed that I could stop memorizing the Q'ran in Arabic; it was hard
enough in English.

I agree with him now, and ever since it was legal again, I've spent my Sundays trying to cram the Arabic
into my gray head. With God's grace I might live long enough to learn it all. Having long ago memorized
the English version helps make up for my slow brain.

I put the old book back in its nitrogen seal bag and took it up to bed with me, dropping off a bundle of
sticks by the stove on the way. I checked on both children and both wives; all were sleeping soundly.
With a prayer of thanks for this strange discovery, I joined Nadia and dreamed of a strange future that
had not come to pass.

The next day was market day. I left Nadia with the children and Fatimah and I went down to the medina
for the week's supplies.

It really is more a woman's work than a man's, and normally I enjoy watching Fatimah go through the
rituals of inspection and barterтАФthe mock arguments and grudging agreement that comprise the
morning's entertainment for customer and merchant alike. But this time I left her in the food part of the