"Sterling E. Lanier - Hieros 01 - Hiero's Journey" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lanier Sterling E)

found himself looking down on the buffer herd and the road from hundreds of
feet up in the air. He was using the eyes of a bird, almost certainly a hawk,
he thought with a detached part of his mind. As his vision swayed to and fro
over a wide arc of country, he fixed everything he saw firmly in his memory.
Here was a lake; there, to the south, a river next to a big swamp over which a
distant road seemed to run on pilings (no mention of that in his briefings;
better look out). The bird was not conscious it was being used. Hiero was not
in any sense controlling it; that was a different business altogether and much
harder, not always possible, in fact. But his concentration on his route had
allowed the mind of the creature which saw that route most clearly somehow to
attract his, as a magnet draws a nail. Had no bird been overhead, perhaps a
squirrel in a high tree would have been his lens, or even a buffer in the
front rank of the herd, if nothing better offered. Hawks and eagles were the
best possible eyes, and there were enough of them about so that there was
usually a good chance of hitting on one. Their eyes were not exactly the same
as a man's, but at least they had a son of binocular vision. This type of
thing was easy for a man of Hiero's large experience, who could, if necessary,
utilize the widely separated eyes of a deer which saw two images.
He noted that the buffer were moving at a fast, steady trot, not panicky, but
alerted, as if some danger were coming but as yet was not too close. The two
wolves he had seen earlier were most unlikely to have caused this feeling, and
he wondered again what had. Sitting up, he broke the trance and looked
12
HIERO'S JOURNEY
down at his left hand. Clenched in his fist were two of the forty small
symbols which he had scattered about the shallow, dish-shaped board. He opened
his own hand and saw another hand in miniature, the tiny, carved Hand, which
signified "friendship." He dropped it back in the dish and looked at the other
symbol. It was the miniature wooden Fishhook. He dropped that in, too, and
emptied the pieces into their leather pouch while considering. His
subconscious precognition had found a curious combination, which needed
thought. The Fishhook had several meanings. One was "concealed danger."
Another was "concealed meaning," or, by extension, a puzzle. In conjunction
with the open hand, one meaning could be "a friend approaches with a riddle."
Another might well be "beware of a seeming friend who means you ill." It had,
curiously, nothing to do with either fish or fishing.
With only forty symbols, the precognition markers were often obscure. But as
was pointed put to every beginning student, if they saved your life, or
someone else's life, even once, they were certainly worth it, were they not?
And a good, sensitive man or woman could do a lot with them. Hiero regarded
his own ability in this particular area as only about average, not anywhere
near up to his ability to use animal eyes as a concealed spyglass. But he had
been helped by the markers before and he always felt better for having used
them.
As he was repacking the saddlebag, the morse, who stil! remained on guard,
snorted suddenly. Hiero turned, his heavy blade drawn out over his left
shoulder and in a ward position as if by magic. Only then he saw the small
bear.
Bears had changed over the millennia like everything else, that is, all bears
had changed in some ways. This was a black bear, and a twentieth-century