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

of our gratitude for molding mankind into the patterns of the United World.
"As a matter of record, I have been instructed to ask first at what point we
have intersected the past. What date is it in your calendar?"
"Why, it's July 7, 2240," Bill heard his own voice stammer a little as he
answered, and he was conscious of a broad and rather foolish grin
overspreading his face. He couldn't help it. This was his boy-the child who
wouldn't be born for years yet, who might, really, never be born. Yet he knew
him, and he couldn't help smiling with pride, and warm, delighted amusement.
So stern-faced, so conscious of his own responsibility! Marta's son and
his-only of course it couldn't be, exactly. This scene he looked into must be
far ahead in time- "Twenty.two forty!" exclaimed the boy who was not his son.
"Why, the Great Work isn't even finished yet then! We're earlier than we
knew!"
"Who are you, son?" Bill couldn't keep the question back any longer.
"I~m John Williams Gory IV, sir," said the boy proudly. "Your direct
descendant through the Williams line, and-First in the Candidates Class." He
said it proudly, a look of almost worshiping awe lighting his resolute young
face. "That means, of course, that I shall be the Sixteenth Leader when the
great Dunn retires, and the sixth Cory-the sixth, sir!-to be called to that
highest of all human stations, the Leadership!" The violet eyes so incongruous
in that disciplined young face blazed with almost fanatic exaltation.
Behind him, a heavy-faced man moved forward, lifting the Roman salute, smiling
wintrily beneath his steel helmet.
"I am Dunn, sir," he said in a voice as heavy as his features. "We've let
Candidate Cory contact you because of the relationship, but it's
my turn now to extend greetings from the System you made possible. I want to
show it to you, but first let me thank you for founding the greatest family
the United World has ever known. No other name has appeared more than twice on
the great role of Leaders, but we have had five Corys-and the finest of them
all is yet to come!"
Bill saw a wave of clear red mount his boy's proud, exalted face, and his own
heart quickened with love and pride. For this was his son, by whatever name he
went here. The memory of his lovely daughter had been drowned out momentarily
in the deep uprushing of pride in this tall, blue-eyed boy with his
disciplined face and his look of leashed eagerness. There was drive and
strength and power of will in that young face now.
He scarcely heard Dunn's heavy voice from the room beyond the cube, so eagerly
was he scanning the face of this son he yet might never have, learning almost
hungrily the already familiar features, at once hard and eager and exultant.
That mouth was his, tight and straight, and the cheeks that creased with deep
hollows when he smiled, but the violet eyes were his mother's eyes, and the
gentle inflexibility of Marta's courage at once strengthened and softened the
features that were Bill's own. The best of them both was here, shining now
with something more than either had ever known-an almost fanatic devotion to
some stem purpose as exalting as worship, as inflexible as duty- "Your own
future, sir," Dunn was saying. "But our past, of course.
Would you like to see it, Dr. Cory, so that you may understand just how
directly we owe to you all that our world is today?"
"Yes-v-very much." Bill grinned at his own stammer, suddenly light-hearted and
incredulous. All this was a dream. He knew that, of course. Why, the very