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

remoter aerial vigils. Dark alternatives to the Paraclete whose coming he awaited, the birds seemed eager
at times to descend in place of the Dove; their sporadic interest had been unnerving him of late, and he
promptly decided, after some experimental shrugging, that the sharp rock had done no more than bruise
and scrape
A dust column which had plumed up from the site of the cave-in was tapering away on the breeze.
He hoped someone would see it from the abbeyтАЩs watchtowers and come to investigate. At his feet, a
square opening yawned in the earth, where one flank of the mound had collapsed into the pit below.
Stairs led downward, but only the top steps remained unburied by the avalanche which had paused for
six centuries in mid-fall to await the assistance of Brother Francis before completing its roaring descent.
On one wall of the stair well a half-buried sign remained legible. Mustering his modest command of
pre-Deluge English, he whispered the words haltingly:

FALLOUT SURVIVAL SHELTER
Maximum Occupancy: 15

Provision limitations, single occupant: 180 days; divide by actual
number of occupants. Upon entering shelter, see that First Hatch is
securely locked and sealed, that the intruder shields are electrified to
repel contaminated persons attempting entry, that the warning lights
are ON outside the enclosureтАж

The rest was buried, but the first word was enough for Francis. He had never seen a тАЬFallout,тАЭ and
he hoped heтАЩd never see one. A consistent description of the monster had not survived, but Francis had
heard the legends. He crossed himself and backed away from the hole. Tradition told that the Beatus
Leibowitz himself had encountered a Fallout, and had been possessed by it for many months before the
exorcism which accompanied his Baptism drove the fiend away.
Brother Francis visualized a Fallout as half-salamander, because, according to tradition, the thing
was born in the Flame Deluge, and as half-incubus who despoiled virgins in their sleep, for, were not the
monsters of the world still called тАЬchildren of the FalloutтАЭ? That the demon was capable of inflicting all the
woes which descended upon Job was recorded fact, if not an article of creed.
The novice stared at the sign in dismay. Its meaning was plain enough. He had unwittingly broken
into the abode (deserted, he prayed) of not just one, but fifteen of the dreadful beings! He groped for his
phial of holy water.


2

тАЬA spiritu fornicationis,
Domino, libera nos.
From the lightning and the tempest,
O Lord, deliver us.
From the scourge of the earthquake,
O Lord, deliver us.
From plague, famine, and war,
O Lord, deliver us.

тАЬFrom the place of ground zero,
O Lord, deliver us.
 From the rain of the cobalt,
O Lord, deliver us.