"MIchael Moorcock - The Dancers At The End Of Time 01 - An Alien Heat" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

"Geronimo!"
Together they made for the house.
The surrounding landscape had been designed to fit in with the ranch. The sky contained a sunset,
which silhouetted the purple hills, and the black pines, which topped them. On the other side was a range
containing a herd of bison. Every few days there would emerge from a cunningly hidden opening in the
ground a group of mechanical 7th cavalrymen who would whoop and shout and ride round and round the
bison shooting their arrows into the air before roping and branding the beasts. The bison had been
specially grown from Jherek's own extensive gene-bank and didn't seem to care for the operation
although it should have been instinctive to them. The 7th cavalry, on the other hand, had been
manufactured in his machine shop because he had a distaste for growing people (who were inclined to be
bad-mannered when the time came for their dissemination).
"What a beautiful sunset," said his mother, who had not visited him since the Hi-Rise days. "Was the
sun really as huge as that in those days?"
"Bigger," he said, "by all accounts. I toned it down rather, for this."
She touched his arm. "You were always inclined to be restrained. I like it."
"Thank you."
They went up the white winding staircase to the veranda, breathing in the delicious scent of magnolia
which grew on the ground beside the basement section of the house. They crossed the veranda and
Jherek manipulated a lever which, depressed, allowed the door to open so that they could enter the
parlour тАФ a single room occupying the whole of this floor. The remaining eight floors were given over to
kitchens, bedrooms, cupboards and the like.
The parlour was a treasure house of 19th century reproductions, including a magnificent pot-bellied
stove carved from a single oak and a flowering aspidistra which grew from the centre of the grass carpet
and spread its rubbery branches over the best part of the room.
The Iron Orchid hovered beside the intricate lattice-work shape which Jherek had seen in an old
holograph and reproduced in steel and chrome. It was like a huge egg standing on its end and it rose as
high as the ceiling.
"And what is this, my life force?" she asked him.
"A spaceship," he explained. "They were constantly attempting to fly to the moon or striving to repel
invasions from Mars. I'm not sure if they were successful, though of course there are no Martians these
days. Some of their writers were inclined to tell rather tall tales, you know, doubtless with a view to
entertaining their companions."
"Whatever possessed them to try! Into space!"
She shuddered. People had lost the inclination to leave the Earth centuries ago.
Naturally, space-travellers called on the planet from time to time, but they were, as often as not,
boring fellows with not much to offer. They were usually encouraged to leave as soon as possible or, if
one should catch somebody's fancy, he would be retained in a collection.
Even Jherek had no impulse to time-travel, though time-travellers would arrive occasionally in his
era. He could have travelled through time himself, if he had wished, and very briefly visited his beloved
19th century. But, like most people, he found that the real places were rather disappointing. It was much
better to indulge in imaginative recreation of the periods or places. Nothing, therefore, would spoil the full
indulgence of one's fancies, or the thrill of discovery as one unearthed some new piece of information and
added it to the texture of one's reproduction.
A servo entered and bowed. The Iron Orchid handed it her clothes (as she had been instructed to
do by Jherek тАФ another custom of the time) and went to stretch her wonderful body under the aspidistra
tree.
Jherek was pleased to note she was wearing breasts again and thus did not clash with her
surroundings. Everything was in period. Even the servo wore a derby, an ulster, chaps and stout brogues
and carried several meerschaum pipes in its steel teeth. At a sign from its master it rolled away.
Jherek went to sit with his back against the bole of the aspidistra. "And now, lovely Iron Orchid, tell