"C. L. Moore - Greater Than Gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore C. L)

Light flared out in one white, blinding sheet that blotted out the cube and
the violet-eyed face and the room around him. Involuntarily Bill clapped his
hands to his eyes, seeing behind the darkness of his lids a dazzle of blurring
colors. It had happened too quickly for wonder-he was not even thinking as he
opened his eyes and looked into the cube where Marta's gaze had met him a
moment before.
And then a great tide of awe and wonder came washing up into his
consciousness, and he knew that Ashley had been right. There was an
alternative future. There comes a point beyond which bewilderment and shock no
longer affect the human brain, and Bill was outside wondering now, or groping
for logical explanations. He only knew that he stood here staring into the
cube from which Marta's eyes had smiled at him so short an instant ago- They
were still Marta's eyes, deep-colored in a boy face almost Bill's
own, feature for feature, under a cap of blue steel. Somehow that other future
had come to him, too. He was aware of a sudden urgent wonder why they had come
so nearly together, though neither could be conscious of the other- But things
were moving in the depths of the cube.
Behind the boy's face, three-dimensional perspective had started vividly back
from the crystal surfaces, as if the cube were a wide window flung suddenly
open upon a new world. In that world, a place of glass and shining chromium,
faces crowded as if indeed at an open window, peering into his room.
Steel-helmed faces with staring eyes. And foremost among them, leaning almost
through the opened window into his own past, the steel-capped boy whose
features were Bill's looked eagerly out, the sound of quickened breath through
his lips a soft, clear sound in the room. They were Bill's lips, Bill's
features- but Marta's gentle courage had somehow grown masculine in the lines
of the boy's face, and her eyes met Bill's in his.
In the instant before those parted lips spoke, Bill knew him, and his throat
closed on an unuttered cry of recognition-recognition of this face he had
never seen before, yet could not mistake. The deep welling of love and pride
in his heart would have told him the boy's identity, he thought, had he not
known at sight who he was-would be-might one day be- He heard his own voice
saying doubtfully, "Son-?"
But if the boy heard he must not have understood. He was handicapped by no
such emotion as stirred Bill. His clipped, metallic voice spoke as clearly as
if indeed through an opened window:
"Greetings from the United World, William Vincent Cory! Greetings from the
Fifteenth Leader in the Fifth New Century, A. C."
Behind the disciplined, stern-featured young face others crowded, men with
steel-hard features under steel caps. As the boy's voice paused, a dozen right
arms slanted high, a dozen open palms turned forward in a salute that was old
when Caesar took it in ancient Rome. A dozen voices rolled out in clipped
accents, "Greetings, William Vincent Cory!"
Bill's bewildered stammer was incoherent, and the boy's face relaxed a little
into a smile. He said: "MTe must explain, of course. For generations our
scientists have been groping in the past, Dr. Cory. This is our first
successful two-way contact, and for its demonstration to our Council,
connection with you was selected as the most appropriate and fitting contact
possible. Because your name is holy among Us; we know all there is to know of
your life and work, but we have wished to look upon your face and speak to you