"C. L. Moore - Julhi" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore C. L)

and mentally. Our range of sensation is vast beyond your comprehension, but to
us it is an old story, and always we seek new sensations, other alien
emotions. We have raided many worlds, many planes, many dimensions, in search
of
something new. It was only a short while ago that we succeeded in breaking
into yours, through the help of Apri here.
"You must understand that we could not have come had there not been a doorway.
Ever since the building of Vonng we have been mentally capable of entering,
but to experience the emotions we crave we must have physical contact, a
temporary physical union through the drinking of blood. And there has never
been a way to enter until we found Apri. You see, we have long known that some
are bom with a wider range of perceptions than their comrades can understand.
Sometimes they are called mad. Sometimes in their madness they are more
dangerous than they realize. For Apri was born with the ability to gaze in
upon our world, and though she did not know this, or understand what the light
was which she could summon up at will, she unwittingly opened the door for us
to enter here.
' 'It was through her aid that I came, and with her aid that I maintain myself
here and bring others through in the dark of the night to feed upon the blood
of mankind. Our position is precarious in your world, and we have not yet
dared make ourselves known. So we have begun upon the lowest types of man, to
accustom ourselves to the fare and to strengthen our hold upon humanity, so
that when we are ready to go forth openly we shall have sufficient power to
withstand your resistance. But soon now we shall come."
The long, lovely, indescribable body upon the couch writhed round to front him
more fully, the motion rippling along her limbs like a wavelet over water. The
deep, steady gaze of the eye bored into his, the voice pulsed with intensity.
"Great things are waiting for you, Earthman-before you die. We shall become
one, for a while. I shall savor all your perceptions, suck up the sensations
you have known. I shall open new fields to you, and see them through your
senses with a new flavor, and you shall share my delight in the taste of your
newness. And as your blood flows you shall know all beauty, and all horror,
and all delight and pain, and all the
other emotions and sensations, nameless to you, that I have known."
The humming music of her voice spun through Smith's brain soothingly. Somehow
what she said held no urgency for him. It was like a legend of something which
had happened long ago to another man. He waited gravely as the voice went on
again, dreamily, gloatingly.
"You have known much of danger, O wanderer. Youhave looked upon strange
things, and life has been full for you, and death an old comrade, and love-and
love-those arms have held many women, is it not so? . . . Is it not so?"
Unbearably sweet, the voice lingered murmurously over the vibrant query,
something compelling and irresistible in the question, in the pitch and the
queer, ringing tone of it. And quite involuntarily memories flashed back
across the surface of his mind. He was quiet, remembering.
The milk-white girls of Venus are so lovely, with their sidelong eyes and
their warm mouths and their voices pitched to the very tone of love. And the
canal-women of Mars- coral pink, sweet as honey, murmurous under the moving
moons. And Earth's girls are vibrant as swordblades, and heady with kisses and
laughter. There were others, too. He remembered a sweet brown savage on a lost