"Moore, C L - Dust of Gods UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore C. L)

DUST OF GODS


УPass the whisky, N.W.,Ф said Yarol the Venusian persuasively.
Northwest Smith shook the black bottle of Venusian segir- whisky tentatively, evoked a slight gurgle, and reached for his friendТs glass. Under the VenusranТs jealous dark gaze he measured out exactly half of the red liquid. It was not very much.
Yarol regarded his share of the drink disconsolately.
УBroke again,Ф he murmured. УAnd me so thirsty.Ф His glance of cherubic innocence flashed along the temptingly laden -counters of the Martian saloon wherein they sat. His face with its look of holy innocence turned to SmithТs, the wise black gaze meeting the Earthman Сs pale-steel look questioningly. Yarol lifted an arched brow.
УHow about it?Ф he suggested delicately. УMars owes us a drink anyhow, and I just had my heat-gun recharged this morning. I thjnk we could get away with it.Ф
Under the table he laid a hopeful hand on his gun. Smith grinned and shook his head.
УToo many customers,Ф he said. УAnd you ought to know better than to start anything here. It isnТt healthful.Ф
Yarol shrugged resigned shoulders and drained his glass with a gulp.
УNow what?Ф he demanded.
УWell, look around. See anyone here you know? WeТre open for businessЧany kind.Ф
Yarol twirled his glass wistfully and studied the crowded room from under his lashes. With those lashes lowered he might have passed for a choir boy in any of EarthТs cathedrals. But too dark a knowledge looked out when they rose for that illusion to continue long.
It was a motley crowd the weary black gaze scrutinizedЧ hard-faced Earthmen in space-sailorsТ leather, sleek Venusians with their sideboog,Чdangerous eyes, Martian drylanders muttering the blasphemous gutturals of their language, a sprinkling of outlanders and half-brutes from the wide-flung borders of civilization. Yarol Сs eyes returned to the dark, scarred face across the tble. He met the pallor of SmithТs no-colored gaze and shrugged. -
УNo one whoТd buy usa drink, Уhe sighed. УIТve seen one or two of Сem before, though. Take those two space-rats at the next table: the little rca-faced EarthmanЧthe one looking over his shoulderЧand the drylander with an eye gone. See? IТve heard theyТre hunters.Ф
УWhat for?Ф
Yarol lifted his shoulders in the expressive Venusian shrug. His brows rose too, quizzically.
УNo one knows what they huntЧbut they run together.Ф
- УHm-m.Ф Smith turned a speculative stare toward the neighboring table. УThey look more hunted than hunting, if you ask me.Ф
Yarol nodded. The two seemed to share one fear between them, if over-the shoulder glances and restless eyes spoke truly. They huddled together above their segir glasses, and though they had the faces of hard men, inured to the spaceway dangers, the look on those faces was curiously corn-
pounded of many unpleasant things underlying a frank, unreasoning alarm. It was a look Smith ~ouId not quite fathomЧa haunted, uneasy dread with nameless things be-
-hind it.
УThey do look as if Black Pharol were one jump behind,Ф said Yarol. УFunny, too. IТve always heard they were pretty tough, both of Сem. You have to be in their profession.Ф
Said a husky half-whisper in their very ears,
СPerhaps they found what they were hunting.Ф
It produced an electric stillness. Smith moved almost imperceptibly sidewise in his chair, the better to clear his gun, and YarolТs slim fingers hovered above his hip. Theyturned expressionless faces tGward the speaker.
A little man sitting alone at the next table had bent forward to fix them with a particularly bright stare. They met kin silence, hostile and waiting, until the husky half-whisper spoke again.
УMay I join you? I couldnТt help overhearing thatЧthat you were open for business.Ф
Without expression SmithТs colorless eyes summed up the speaker, and a puzzlement clouded their paleness. as be looked. Rarely does one meet a man whose origin and race are not apparent even upon close scrutiny. Yet here was one whom he could not classify: Under the deep burn of the manТs skin might be concealed a fair Venusian pallor or an Earthman bronze, canal-Martian rosiness or even a leathery dryland hide. His dark eyes could have belonged to any race, and his husky whisper, fluent in the jargon of the spaceman, effectively disguised its origin. Little and unobtrusive, he might have passed for native on any of the three planets.
SmithТs scarred, impassive face did not change as he looked, but after a long mOment of scrutiny he said, УPull up,Ф and then bit off the words as if he had said too much.
The brevity must have pleased the little man, for he smiled as he complied, meeting the passively hostile stain of the two without embarrassment. He folded his arms on the table and leaned forward. The husky voice began without preamble,
УI can offer you employmentЧif you ~re-not afraid. ItТs dangerous work, but the payТs good enough to make up for itЧif youТre not afraid.Ф
УWha~t is it?Ф
УWork theyЧthose two.Чfailed at. They wereЧ huntersЧuntil they found СWhat they hunted. Look at them
now.Ф -
SmithТs no-colored eyea did not swerve from the speakerТs face, but he nodded. No need to look again upon the fearridden faces of the neighboring pair. He understood.
УWhatТs the job?Ф he asked.
The little man hitched his chair closer and sent a glance round the room from under lowered lids. Ije scanned the faces of his two companions half dotIbtfully. He said, УThere have beer~ many gods since timeТs beginning,Ф then paused and peered dubiously into SmithТs face.
Northwest nodded briefly. УGo on,Ф he said.
Reassured, the little man took up his tale, and before he had gone far enthusiasm drowned out the doubtfulness in his j-husky voice, and a tinge of fanaticism crept in.
УThere were gods who were old when Mars was a green planet, and a verdant moon circled an Earth blue with steaming seas, and Venus, mo1ten~hot, swung round a younger sun. Another world circled in space then, between-Mars and Jupiter where its fragments, the planetoids, now are. You will have heard rumors of itЧthey persist in the legends of every planet. It was a mighty, world, rich and beautiful, peopled by the ancestors in mankind. And on that world dwelt a mighty Three in a temple of crystal, served by strange slaves and worshipped by a world. They were not wholly abstract, as most modern gods have become. Some say they were frombeyond, and real, in their way, as flesh and blood.
УThose three gods were the origin and beginning of all other gods that mankind has known. All modern gods are echoes of them, in a world that has forgotten the very name of the Lost Planet. Saig they called one, and Lsa was the second. You will never have beard of themЧthey lied before
your worldТs hot seas had cooled. No man knows bow they vanished, or why, and no trace of them is left anywhere in the universe we know. But there was a ThirdЧa mighty Thmi set above these two and ruling the Lost Planet; so mighty a Third that even today, unthinkably long afterward, his name has not died from the lips of man. It has become a byword nowЧ his name; that once no living man dared utter! I heard you call upon him not ten minutes pastЧBlack Pharol!Ф
His husky voice sank to a quiver as it spoke the hackneyed name. Yarol gave a sudden snort of laughter, quickly hushed, and said, УPharol! WhyЧФ
УYes, I know. Pharol, today, means unmentionable rites to an ancient no-god of utter darkness. Pharol has tunk So low that his very name denotes nothingness. -But in other daysЧ ah, in other days! Black Pharol has not always been a blur of dark worshipped with obscenity. In other days men knew what things that darkness hid, nor dared pronounce the name you laugh at, lest unwittingly they stumble upon that secret twist of its inflection which opens the door upon the dark that is Pharol. Men have been engulfed before now in that utter blackness of the god, and in that dark have seen fearful things. I knowФЧtheraw voice trailed away into a murmurЧТ Сsuch featful things that a man might scream his throat hoarse and never speak again above a whisper. . . .У
SmithТs eyes flicked YarolТs. The husky murmur went on after a moment.
УSo you see the old gods have not died utterly. They can never die as we know death: they come from too far Beyond to know either death or life as we do. They came from so very
- far that to touch us at all they had to take a visible form among mankindЧto incarnate themselves in a material body through which, as through a door, they might reach out and touch the bodies and minds of men. The form they chose does not matter nowЧI do not know it. It was a material thing, and it has gone to dust so long ago that the very memory of its shape has vanished from the minds of men. But that dust still exists. Do you hear me? That dust which was once the fbet
and the greatest of all gods, still exists! It was that which those men hunted. It was that they found, and fled in deadly terror of what they saw there. You look to be made of firmer stuff. Will you take up the search where they left it?Ф