"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." ------- The Proavitoi were not humanoid. Still less were they "monkey-faces," 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 |
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