"George R. R. Martin - With Morning Comes Mistfall (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

"Why?"
"Because. Because he's going to destroy this world, if I let him. By the
time he and his kind get through, there won't be a mystery left in the
universe."
"He's just trying to find some answers. Do the wraiths exist? What about
the ruins? Who built them? Didn't you ever want to know those things,
Sanders?"
He drained his drink, looked around, and caught the waiter's eye to
order another. No robowaiters in here. Only human help. Sanders was particular
about atmosphere.
"Of course," he said when he had his drink. "Everyone's wondered about
those questions. That's why people come here to Wraithworld, to the Castle
Cloud. Each guy who touches down here is secretly hoping he'll have an
adventure with the wraiths, and find out all the answers personally.
"So he doesn't. So he slaps on a blaster and wanders around the mist
forests for a few days, or a few weeks, and finds nothing. So what? He can
come back and search again. The dream is still there, and the romance, and the
mystery.
"And who knows? Maybe one trip he glimpses a wraith drifting through the
mists. Or something he thinks is a wraith. And then he'll go home happy,
because he's been part of a legend. He's touched a little bit of creation that
hasn't had all the awe and the wonder ripped from it yet by Dubowski's sort."
He fell silent, and stared morosely into his drink. Finally, after a
long pause, he continued. "Dubowski! Bah! He makes me boil. He comes here with
his ship full of lackeys and his million-credit grant and all his gadgets, to
hunt for wraiths. Oh, he'll get them all right. That's what frightens me.
Either he'll prove they don't exist, or he'll find them, and they'll turn out
to be some kind of submen or animals or something."

He emptied his glass again, savagely. "And that will' . ruin it. Ruin
it, you hear! He'll answer all the questions with his gadgets, and there'll be
nothing left for anyone else. It isn't fair."
I sat there and sipped quietly at my drink and said nothing. Sanders
ordered another. A foul thought was running around in my head. Finally I had
to say it aloud.
"If Dubowski answers all the questions," I said,
"then there will be no reason to come here anymore. -
And And you'll be put out of business. Are you sure that's.
not why you're so worried?"
Sanders glared at me, and I thought he was going to hit me for a second.
But he didn't. "I thought you were different. You looked at mistfall, and
understood.; I thought you did, anyway. But I guess I was wrong." , He jerked
his head .toward the door. "Get out of here,", he said.
I rose. "All right," I said. "I'm sorry, Sanders. But , it's my job to
ask nasty questions like that."
He ignored me, and I left the table. When I reached' the door, I turned
and looked back across the room... Sanders was staring into his drink again,
and talking:; loudly to himself.
"Answers," he said. He made it sound obscene. "Answers. Always they have
to have answers. But the questions are so much finer. Why can't they leave'