"Frank Herbert - Soul Catcher" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

muscles. Bits of dirt clung to his skin. The spirit power of this moment went all through his
flesh. 'I am Tamanawis speaking to you ... '
He said: 'You will stand now and face the moon.'
'Why?'
'Do it.'
'What if I don't?'
'You will anger the spirits.'
Something in the man's tone dried David's mouth. He said: 'I want to go back now.'
'First, you must stand and face the moon.'
'Then can we go back?'
'Then we can go.'
'Well ... okay. But I think this is kind of dumb.'
David stood. He felt the wind, a forboding of rain in it. His mind was filled suddenly with
memories of a childish game he and his friends had played among the creekside trees near
his home: Cowboys and Indians. What would that game mean to his man?
Scenes and words tumbled through David's mind: Bang! Bang! You're dead! Dead injun
cowboy injun dead. And Mrs Parma calling him to lunch. But he and his friends had
scratched out a cave in the creek bank and had hidden there, suppressing giggles in the
mildew smell of cave dirt and the voice of Mrs Parma calling and everything stirring in his
head -- memory and this moment in the wilderness, all become one -- moon, dark trees
moved by the wind, moonlit clouds beyond a distant hill, the damp odor of earth ...
The man spoke close behind him: 'You can hear the river down there. We are near water.
Spirits gather near water. Once, long ago, we hunted spirit power as children seek a toy. But
you hoquat came and you changed that. I was a grown man before I felt Tamanawis within
me.'
David trembled. He had not expected words of such odd beauty. They were like prayer.
He felt the warmth of the man's body behind him, the breath touching his head.
The voice continued in a harsh tone:
'We ruined it, you know. We distrusted and hated each other instead of our common foe.
Foreign ideas and words clotted our minds with illusion, stole our flesh from us. The white
man came upon us with a face like a golden mask with pits for eyes. We were frozen before
him. Shapes came out of the darkness. They were part of darkness and against it -- flesh
and antiflesh -- and we had no ritual for this. We mistook immobility for peace and we were
punished.'
David tried to swallow in a dry throat. This did not have the sound of ritual. The man
spoke with an accent of education and knowledge. His words conveyed a sense of
accusation.
'Do you hear me?' Katsuk asked.
For a moment, David failed to realize the question had been directed at him. The man's
voice had carried such a feeling of speaking to spirits.
Katsuk raised his voice: 'Do you hear me?'
David jumped. 'Yes.'
'Now, repeat after me exactly what I say,'
David nodded.
Katsuk said: 'I am Hoquat.'
'What?'
'I am Hoquat!'
'I am Hoquat?' David could not keep a questioning inflection from his voice.
'I am the message from Soul Catcher,' Katsuk said.
In a flat voice, David repeated it: 'I am the message from Soul Catcher.'