"Lafferty, R A - Nine Hundred Grandmothers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lafferty R A)


"But who knows? Doesn't someone know?"

"Oh, yes. All the old ones know how it began."

"How old? How many generations back from you till they know?"

"Ten, no more. When I have ten generations of children, then I will also
go to the Ritual."

"The Ritual, what is it?"

"Once a year, the old people go to the very old people. They wake them
up and ask them how it all began. The very old people tell them the
beginning. It is a high time. Oh, how they hottle and laugh! Then the
very old people go back to sleep for another year. So it is passed down
to the generations. That is the Ritual."




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The Proavitoi were not humanoid. Still less were they "monkey-faces,"
though that name was now set in the explorers' lingo. They were
upright and robed and swathed, and were assumed to be two-legged
under their garments. Though, as Manbreaker said, "They might go on
wheels, for all we know."

They had remarkable flowing hands that might be called everywhere-
digited. They could handle tools, or employ their hands as if they were
the most intricate tools.

George Blood was of the opinion that the Proavitoi were always
masked, and that the men of the Expedition had never seen their faces.
He said that those apparent faces were ritual masks, and that no part of
the Proavitoi had ever been seen by the men except for those
remarkable hands, which perhaps were their real faces.

The men reacted with cruel hilarity when Ceran tried to explain to them
just what a great discovery he was verging on.

"Little Ceran is still on the how-did-it-begin jag," Manbreaker jeered.
"Ceran, will you never give off asking which came first, the chicken or
the egg?"

"I will have that answer very soon," Ceran sang. "I have the unique
opportunity. When I find how the Proavitoi began, I may have the clue
to how everything began. All of the Proavitoi are still alive, the very