"The Black Corridor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

The Black Corridor
by Michael Moorcock

CHAPTER ONE

Space is infinite.
It is dark.
Space is neutral.

It is cold.

*

Stars occupy minute areas of space. They are clustered a few
billion here. A few billion there. As if seeking consolation in numbers.

Space does not care.

*

Space does not threaten.

Space does not comfort.

It does not sleep; it does not wake; it does not dream; it does not
hope; it does not fear; it does not love; it does not hate; it does not
encourage any of these qualities.

Space cannot be measured. It cannot be angered. It cannot be
placated. It cannot be summed up.

Space is there.

*

Space is not large and it is not small. It does not live and it does
not die. It does not offer truth and neither does it lie.
Space is a remorseless, senseless, impersonal fact.
Space is the absence of time and of matter.

*

Through this silence moves a tiny pellet of metal. It moves so
slowly as to seem not to move at all. It is a lonely little object. In its
own terms it is a long way from its planet of origin.

In the solid blackness it gives off faint light. In that great life-
denying void it contains life.

A few wisps of gas hang on it; a certain amount of its own waste