"Jacqueline Lichtenberg - Molt Brother" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lichtenberg Jacqueline)

only inhabitants of the area had been the Mautri priests and their students. The humans, stranded, knew that they
shouldn't establish a colony on an inhabited world, but the priests welcomed them. By the time the colony regained
contact with the Hundred Planets, a small city had grown around the lake, with a thriving university, tourist trade,
and health resort. As Camiat joined the Hundred Planets, Firestrip became the official port of entry, and offworld
corporations began building offices. Embassies and Hundred Planets offices fol-lowed, and now Firestrip was Camiat's
largest city.
Next they climbed the second of the five hills. It was nearly sunset, and the temperature was dropping. Zref said,
"Perhaps you'd like to walk up to the peak." "To see the Wassly Crown? Certainly." The alien set off up the
well-marked trail. Zref followed, discarding his usual patter about how the concentric circles of giant standing stones
were of some material not found anywhere on Camiat and how they were precisely placed for observing the stars as
they were positioned one whole revolution of the galaxy ago, during the First Lifewave. They arrived at the
sheared-off top of the mountain just as the sun reached the right slant to set the translucent green stones glowing.
The Interface stopped, spellbound. The five concentric circles of megaliths loomed higher than a house and leaped at
one with a reality that made the rest of the mountain seem cut from pasteboard. Many of the capstones still bridged
the upright stones, lending an enclosed feeling to the place.
After a time, Zaviv uttered something, and at Sudeen's interrogative, he translated: "These were the first com-puters,
and the men who used them were the forerunners of what I have chosen to become."
Zref had never thought of that before; while he was considering it, the Interface walked up to and over the chain
marker that kept people away. At that moment, they were alone on the mountaintop, but there was a tour bus just
turning onto the road.
Zref shrugged, and Sudeen said, "Well, we have no guide's license to lose. Let him go."
The Brenilak approached the oblong slab of translucent green stone set in the center of the circle. He laid both his
hands on it, and Zref gained an impression of an over-whelming sadness, followed, as the Brenilak turned to come
back, by a growing resignation. Zref knew that he shouldn't be seeing any of this in an Interface. He remem-bered
reading that sensitives couldn't become Interfaces be-cause the surgery destroyed the psychic brain functions. Had
Zaviv been a sensitive who became an Interface? Zref was as curious now about the Interface as Zaviv seemed to be
about them.
As they walked back down the path, watching the tour bus disgorge its passengers onto the overlook, the Inter-face
asked, "Well, young gentlebeings, what is your theory of the origin of the Wassly Crown?"
"Our theory," said Sudeen, "assumes that this crown dates from the First Lifewave, and it takes into account that all
the crowns found around the galaxy are reported to be psychically active."
The Brenilak said distantly, "Sensitives are notoriously suggestible."
Now Zref could not be sure that he'd seen that flash of sadness in the man before. "Yes, we know how the sensi-tives
all predicted the arrival of beings from another galaxy within the year, but only a popular vidrama on the subject
appeared. The sensitives had read the mass con-sciousness accurately but mistook a mass fantasy for reality."
"Have you read the new Lantern novel, Skanqwin and the Emperor of Crowns?" asked Sudeen, and continued
without waiting for the Interface's assent: "What if the archeovisualizers who write those novels have it right? What if
the crowns are the First Lifewave's interstellar communications network, letting telepaths transmit error-free messages
instantaneously?"
"To prove it," said Zref, "we'd have to find two per-fectly intact crowns, calculate their proper alignment, and then
station a pair of perfectly compatible sensitives in them! Meanwhile, it's just a fascinating hypothesis!"
Sudeen pulled their car onto the downward road. This was the older section of town, where rents were cheap, and
many Camiat University students lived on the hillside.
Two such students caught Zref's eye, and he was about to point them out to their client when he realized that it must
be the pair from the shuttleport. The kren female now wore a coat, while her bhirhir had rolled up his shirt-sleeves. As
Zref watched, they approached one of the apartment buildings. He glanced at Sudeen, who was busy coaxing the car
down the narrow street while the Interface gazed at the view of downtown.
Then they were down on the level main road that tunneled through the hills and shot right up to the Mautri
temple/school complex.
They parked on the overlook among the tour buses and hurried up the footpath toward the kyralizth. Just as the sun