"Walter M. Miller - The Lost Masters - Volume 01" - читать интересную книгу автора (Miller Walter M)

From the rain of the strontium,
O Lord, deliver us.
From the fall of the cesium,
O Lord, deliver us.

тАЬFrom the curse of the Fallout,
O Lord, deliver us.
From the begetting of monsters,
O Lord, deliver us.
From the curse of the Misborn,
O Lord deliver us.
A morte perpetua,
Domine, libera nos.

тАЬPeccatores,
te rogamus, audi nos.
That thou wouldst spare us,
we beseech thee, hear us.
That thou wouldst pardon us,
we beseech thee, hear us.
That thou wouldst bring us truly to penance,
te rogamus, audi nos.тАЭ




S
natches of such versicles from the Litany of the Saints came whispering on each panting breath as Brother
Francis lowered himself gingerly into the stair well of the ancient Fallout Shelter, armed as he was only
with holy water and an improvised torch lighted from the banked embers of last nightтАЩs fire. He had
waited more than an hour for someone from the abbey to come investigate the dust plume. No one had
come.
To abandon his vocational vigil even briefly, unless seriously ill or unless ordered to return to the
abbey, would be regarded as an ipso facto renunciation of his claim of a true vocation to life as a monk
of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz. Brother Francis would have preferred death. He was faced,
therefore, with the choice of investigating the fearsome pit before sunset, or of spending the night in his
burrow in ignorance of whatever might lurk in the shelter and might reawaken to prowl in darkness. As a
nocturnal hazard, the wolves already made trouble enough, and the wolves were merely creatures of flesh
and blood. Creatures of less solid substance, he preferred to meet by the light of day; although, to be
sure, scant daylight fell into the pit below, the sun now being low in the west.
The debris which had crashed down into the shelter formed a hill with its crest near the head of the
stairs, and there was only a narrow squeezeway between the rocks and the ceiling. He went through it
feet first and found himself forced to continue feet first, because of the steepness of the slope. Thus
confronting the Unknown face-to-backside, he groped for footholds in the loose heap of broken stone
and gradually worked his way downward. Occasionally, when his torch flickered low, he paused to tilt its
flame downward, letting the fire spread further along the wood; during such pauses, he tried to appraise
the danger about him and below. These was little to be seen. He was in an underground room, but at
least one third of its volume was filled by the mound of debris that had fallen through the stair well. The
cascade of stone had covered all the floor, crushed several pieces of furniture that he could see, and
perhaps had completely buried others. He saw battered metal lockers leaning awry, waist-deep in