"John Norman - Gor 01- Tarnsman of Gor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norman John)

for which I had been brought to the Counter-Earth, nor did he explain to me the comparatively
minor mysteries of the envelope and its strange letter. Most keenly perhaps, I missed that he had
not spoken to me of himself, for I wanted to know him,; that kindly, remote stranger whose bones
were in my

body, whose blood flowed in mine-my father.

I now inform you that what I write of my own experience I know to be true, and that what I have
accepted on authority I believe to be true, but I shall not be offended if you disbelieve, for 1,
too, in your place, would refuse to believe. Indeed, on the small evidence I can present in this


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narrative, you are obliged, in all honesty, to reject my testimony or at the very least to suspend
judgment. In fact, there is so little probability that this tale will be believed that the Priest-
Kings of Sardar, the Keepers of the Sacred Place, have apparently granted that it may be recorded.
I am glad of this, because I must tell this story. I have seen things of which I must speak, even
if, as it is said here, only to the Towers.

Why have the Priest-Kings been so lenient in this case -those who control this second earth? I
think the answer
is simple. Enough humanity remains in them, if they are human, for we have never seen them, to be
vain; enough vanity remains in them to wish to inform you of their existence, if only in a way
that you will not accept or be able to consider seriously. Perhaps there is humor in the Sacred
Place, or irony. After all, suppose you should accept this tale, should learn of the Counter-Earth
and of the Voyages of Acquisition, what could' you do? You could do nothing, you with your
rudimentary technology of which you are so proud-you could do nothing at least for a thousand
years, and by that time, if the Priest-Kings choose, this planet will have found a new sun, and
new peoples to populate its verdant surface.
3

The Tarn

"HO!" CRIED TORM, THAT MOST improbable member of
the Caste of Scribes, throwing his blue robes over his
head as though he could not bear to see the light of
day. Out of the robes then popped the sandy-haired head
of the scribe, his pale blue eyes twinkling on each side of
that sharp needle of a nose. He looked me over. "Yes,"
he cried, "I deserve it!" Back went the head into the
robes. Muffled, his voice reached me. "Why must 1, an
idiot, be always afflicted with idiots?" Out came the head.

"Have I nothing better to do? Have I not a thousand scrolls gathering dust on my shelves, unread,
unstudied?"

"I don't know," I said.