"John Meaney - Sanctification" - читать интересную книгу автора (Meaney John)

hold. Beneath the monastery, vast machinery swung into action, making huge
energies available to Mark's questing mind. Slowly, Mark was drawing his
mind forward till it occupied the no-space between a wave-function and its
collapse, the Buddha-nature of reality.
"I wish the ship to be at Aleph Mu." Mark's voice was startling,
resonating in the silence.
There was a delay - the verbalization was not the thought itself - and
then the screen showed empty space above the planet. The colony ship was
gone.
The strength of Mark's wish kept a comms link open across the light-years,
and stayed long enough for a bearded face to appear on the screen. The
ship's captain.
"We have arrived safely. The newest nation of Man will soon be born. Our
thanks, and our prayers."
The screen went blank.
It was completely forbidden, but Zenshara reached out to hold Zhiang's
hand as he knelt beside her. They held hands, squeezing painfully, as they
watched the drugs' final effects upon Mark's body. As all in the monastery
watched, Mark began to die. His face seemed to close in upon itself, his
whole body to shrink. Slowly, the tension in his muscles faded and his
head began to sink forward, his torso bending until he was kneeling with
his head on the dais. Then the final change and all of tension and all of
life was gone from Mark's slumped body.
The smell of incense drifted through the air as the pallbearers, robed in
white, arrived to wrap the corpse and carry it away on a ceremonial
floatpad. There was no funeral ceremony for a Saint, for they had achieved
their Wish. As the pallbearers took their burden from the hall, Zenshara
could not accept that she had seen Mark for the last time. Surely she
could run to his room, right now, and see him there, standing with that
smile upon his face... But she of all the people in the hall, should know
better. For it was no longer a secret that Zenshara, too, seemed destined
for Sainthood.
At the end of the ceremony Zenshara and Zhiang went back to Zhiang's room,
after their legs had recovered sufficiently to walk. There would be no
lessons today. The pain in their legs was almost unbearable in its
pleasure: the pain of being alive.
They held each other tightly, though it was Zhiang who wept more. Later
on, they made love for the first time. It was the deepest experience of
their young lives. It was an affirmation of life.

She was kneeling on the hard rich wooden floor of her study, facing the
wall. The wall was blank, all holo- and flat-displays switched off. At her
side knelt Teacher; he could watch her expression, though she could not
turn to look at him.
"Where does the Wish live?" he asked.
"The space between matter and idea."
"When does the Wish live?"
"The time between possibility and event."
"What is this place and time?"
Zenshara: "It is reality."