"C M Kornbluth - The Words Of Guru" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

"How do you know?" he asked sharply. "This is your first."

"And maybe my last," I replied. "I don't like the idea of it. If I have nothing more to learn from my
second than my first I shan't go to another."

"You don't know," he said. "You don't know what it's like-the voices, and the bodies slick with unguent,
leaping flames; mind-filling ritual! You can have no idea at all until you've taken part."

"We'll see," I said. "Can we leave from here?"

"Yes," he said. Then he taught me the word I would need to know, and we both said it together.

The place we were in next was lit with red lights, and I think that the walls were of rock. Though of
course there was no real seeing there, and so the lights only seemed to be red, and it was not real

rock.

As we were going to the fire one of them stopped us. "Who's with you?" she asked, calling Guru by
another name. I did not know that he was also the person bearing that name, for it was a very powerful

one.

He cast a hasty, sidewise glance at me and then said: "This is
Peter of whom I have often told you."

She looked at me then and smiled, stretching out her oily arms. "Ah," she said, softly, like the cats when
they talk at night to me. "Ah, this is Peter. Will you come to me when I call you, Peter? And sometimes
call for me-in the dark-when you are alone?"

"Don't do that!" said Guru, angrily pushing past her. "He's very young-you might spoil him for his work."

She screeched at our backs: "Guru and his pupil-fine pair! Boy, he's no more real than I am-you're the
only real thing here!"

"Don't listen to her," said Guru. "She's wild and raving. They're always tight-strung when this time*
comes around."

We came near the fires then, and sat down on rocks. They were killing animals and birds and doing
things with their bodies. The blood was being collected hi a basin of stone, which passed through the
crowd. The one to my left handed it to me. "Drink," she said, grinning to show me her fine, white teeth. I
swallowed twice from it and passed it to Guru.

When the bowl had passed all around we took off our clothes. Some, like Guru, did not wear them, but
many did. The one to my left sat closer to me, breathing heavily at my face. I moved away. "Tell her to
stop, Guru," I said. "This isn't part of it, I know."

Guru spoke to her sharply in their own language, and she changed

her seat, snarling.