"Julian May - Diamond Mask" - читать интересную книгу автора (May Julian)

youth, when her face was bare.
***
Much later, when he was snug in his sleeping bag and the fire had gone out and the continuing
rain had freshened the air, Rogatien Remillard let the tranquil ambiance of Keaku Cave lull him to
sleep. The air was fragrant again now that the smoke had dissipated; but oddly enough the scent
seemed not to be that of mokihana berries but rather of a certain old-fashioned perfume called Bal
├а Versailles.
How did I know that? Rogi asked himself drowsily. More huna magic? Or are the Family Ghost
and Doroth├йe still playing games in my head?
A moment later he was fast asleep, dreaming not of the monster named Fury and its attendant
Hydras, nor even of Diamond Mask. Instead he dreamed about a woman with silvery eyes and
strawberry blonde hair who had first smiled at him on top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire,
years before Earth knew that the Galactic Milieu even existed. It was a sweet dream, without
remorse.
In the morning, Rogi had forgotten it completely.

1

FROM THE MEMOIRS OF ROGATIEN REMILLARD

UNITY!
God, how we Earthlings were afraid of it, in spite of all that Paul and Ti-Jean and Doroth├йe
did. Quite a few normals still have their doubtsтАФand so do I. A minority of one: the only
uncoadunated meta head still at large.
I'm still a Rebel. The very last unconverted human operant, shunning Unity's consolations,
thumbing my nose at the Coadunating No├╢sphere, evading all that magical, mystical superstuff that
the Milieu confers on good little minds who participate in Teilhardian ultracerebration. All the
other human operants live in Unity. Even those odd young peopleтАФsome of them my own kinтАФwho
escaped the Pliocene Exile have undergone the initiation and signed on as conditional uniates. But
not me. No siree! I'm not much, but what there is, is straight up and 190 proof Everclear.
What's more, the Milieu can't do a thing about it. Up until the reappearance of the Family
Ghost and my embarking upon these memoirs, I thought the Unanimity Affirmers had just overlooked
me. After all, I'm no high-powered meta, just an unimportant old bookseller making no particular
use of my meager powers ... unless I'm really backed into a bad corner.
But that isn't the reason I escaped.
At this late stage of the game I realize that my apparent immunity was all part of the Family
Ghost's plot. I was allowed to evade the Unity net so that the really outrageous deeds I had
witnessed or perpetrated wouldn't be exposed to public scrutiny too soon, as they would have been
if I had been forced to Affirm and hang out all my mind's dirty laundry during the initiation.
Earlier on, especially during the crucial decades immediately following the Metapsychic
Rebellion, the time just wasn't ripe for the revelations contained in these memoirs. The Remillard
familyтАФeven the ones who were dead or otherwise removed from the chessboard by thenтАФwere still too
important to the grand game to be accidentally traduced by the likes of me.
Now those considerations are moot. Even the most scandalous doings of my illustrious family
can be revealed in these chronicles because the tenure of Atoning Unifex, Overlord of the Lylmik
and founder of at least two Galactic Milieux, is finally at an end. I have been assured that
uncounted billions of entities as yet unborn will study these processed words of mine, making God
knows what of them. I have not been told what consequences will fall upon me, their author, once
the memoirs are published and the cat's out of the bag.
C'est une bizarrerie formidable, mais c'est comme ├зa et pas autrement!