"Edmond Hamilton - The Godmen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

A big surprise, yes, but not a dismaying one. Earthmen were still ahead, sometimes far ahead, of these
other human and humanoid races in achievement. After all, they had said, we were the first race of all to
conquer space, to invent the ion-drive and then the spacewarp, and travel between the stars. We men of
EarthтАФthe pioneers.

And that, thought Harlow, was where the second surprise had come. As ships of the Star Survey
landed on far-separated star-worlds, as their linguists learned alien languages and spoke with these
peoples, they gradually got the surprise. Almost all these peoples of the stars had a common belief, a
legend.

"You Earthmen are not the first. Others have traveled the stars for a long time and still do. The Vorn."
****
The name was different on different worlds, but the legend was always the same. Earthmen were not first.
The Vorn had been first. They had been, and still were, star-travelers. AndтАФ

"The Vorn use no ships like yours. They come and go, but not in ships."

Small wonder that scientists of the Star Survey, like Edwin Dundonald, had felt a feverish curiosity to get
at the bottom of this legend of the Vorn. There had to be something behind it. Peoples forever separated
by light-years could not make it up in their own heads simultaneously.

And Dundonald's party had set out in their Starquest, and that had been the start of it, for Harlow. For
no communic-message could come back from Dundonald at these vast distances. And when Dundonald
himself had not come back, after months, the Survey became worried. Which was why the Survey had
sent Harlow to find Dundonald, who was his friend and also a valuable scientist. Since his plans had
included this star-system, they had come to ML-441 to find his trail.

"We've been here all this time,тАЭ Kwolek was saying pessimistically, as they stared at the silent, distant
figures and the town. тАЬWe've learned their language, and that's all we have learned. It's a washout. And
now I think they want us off their world."

"We're not leaving,тАЭ Harlow said, тАЬuntil we talk to that man Brai."

Brave words, he thought. What had he been doing here all this time but trying to find Brai, and failing.
Failing in the very first step of his search for Dundonald.

As they stood there, the sun touched the horizon and washed lurid light over everything. Harlow turned.

"I'm going in to see N'Kann. I'm going to have this out with him."

"I'll go with you,тАЭ said Kwolek, but Harlow shook his head.

"And I don't want you coming after me, either. Wait."

As Harlow walked forward, he was conscious of the sullen hostility in the gay-robed, immobile, silent
group at the edge of the monolithic town. The very first Star Survey ship to touch here had accurately
estimated the half-civilized state of the Ktashan culture, and it was the Survey's policy to deal with all
such peoples with a careful absence of patronage or domination.