"C. L. Moore - The Cold Gray God" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore C. L)

removed the coat he slipped out the gun which had lain in his right hand
pocket and upon which his hand had rested all the while he was in the street.
He tucked it inside his leather jacket and followed the still cloaked woman
down a short hallway and through a low arch under which he had to stoop his
head. The room they entered was immemo-rially ancient, changelessly Martian.
Upon the dark stone floor, polished by the feet of countless generations, lay
the
furs of saltland beasts and the thick-pelted animals of the pole. The stone
walls were incised with those inevitable, mysterious symbols which have become
nothing more than queer designs now, though a million years ago they bore deep
significance. No Martian house, old or new, lacks them, and no living Martian
knows their meaning.
Remotely they must be bound up with the queer, cold darkness of that strange
religion which once ruled Mars and which dwells still in the heart of every
true Martian, though its shrines are secret now and its priests discredited.
Perhaps if one could read those symbols they would tell the name of the cold
god whom Mars worships still, in its heart of hearts, yet whose name is never
spoken.
The whole room was fragrant and a little mysterious with the aromatic fumes of
the braziers set at intervals about the irregularly shaped room, and the low
ceiling pressed the perfume down so that it hung in smoky layers in the sweet,
heavy air.
' 'Be seated,'' murmured the woman from the depths of her hood.
Smith glanced about in distaste. The room was furnished
in the luxuriant Martian style so at odds with the harsh
characteristics of the Martian people. He selected the least
, voluptuous-looking of the couches and sat down, regarding
the woman obliquely as he did so.
She had turned a little away from him now and was slowly unfastening her furs.
Then in one slow, graceful motion she flung back the cloak.
Smith caught his breath involuntarily, and a little shiver rippled over him,
like the queer shock which had shaken his usually iron poise in the street. He
could not be certain whether it were admiration or distaste he felt more
strongly. And this despite her breath-taking beauty. Frankly he stared.
Yes, she was Venusian. Nowhere save upon mat sunless, mist-drenched planet are
such milk-white women bred. Voluptuously slim she was, in the paradoxical
Venusian way, and the sweet, firm curves of her under velvet were more
eloquent than a love-song. Her deeply crimson robe swathed her close in the
traditional Venusian way, leaving one arm and rose-white shoulder bare and
slit so that at every other step her milky thigh gleamed through. Heavy lids
veiled her eyes from him as she turned. Unmistakably, exquisitely, she was
Venusian, and from head to foot so lovely that despite himself Smith's pulses
quickened.
He bent forward, eyes eager upon her face. It was flawlessly lovely, the long
eyes subtly tilted, the planes of her cheekbones and the set of her chin
eloquent of the beauty which dwelt in the very bones beneath her sweet white
flesh, so that even her skull must be lovely. And with an odd little catch in
his breath, Smith admitted to himself that she was indeed the woman he had
guessed. He had not mistaken the throbbing richness of her voice. But-he
looked closer, and wondered if he really did catch some hint of-wrongness-in