"Steve Perry - Matador 7 - Brother Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Steven)

important.

Traffic rumbled past, noises muted by the thick walls, but still producing subtle vibrations. No matter.

The vouch hummed electronically to itself, constantly monitoring Kifu's physical and mental telemetry.
A small matter.

In the hall outside the closed meditation chamber a student sweated, bacteria thriving in the altered salts
of his perspiration, their microscopic life and tiny works making him smell sour with nervousness. A
faint remnant of incense lingered, clinging to the fine-grained black walnut planks, wood that had a
hundred years of careful hand polishing and honing so it was almost thincris-smooth. Kifo identified the
stink of sweat and the more pleasant incense, noting the bitter-but-sweet tang of muste, a local inkwood
the poets liked to claim was dark as original sin.

Neither did these things matter.

When he opened his eyes, his vision matched in its clarity his other senses. On a cushion of diamond-
grade ghostsilk from Rangi ya majani Mwezi lay the Sacred Glyph. It was a flat gunmetal blue-black
against the pale material, a cloth ranked as the finest ever done by the best weaver the Green Moon had
yet produced. The covering of the cushion had cost more than a rich man's home, yet the silk, too, was

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nothing.

But the Glyph. Ah. The Glyph mattered.

It was the holiest of all relics in any religion, made by the Gods Themselves, and outside of the Few, no
one knew it existed. In the eighty years since its discovery, no member of the Few had ever revealed his
or her knowledge of the Sacred Glyph to any outside the order. To even speak the name aloud anywhere
save the electronically shielded and regularly swept meditation room was worth instant death,
administered by any within earshot. To fail to strike down such a transgression was itself worth death.
Only those initiated into the Very Few-never more than nine, never less than six-were considered
trustworthy enough to learn of the existence of the Sacred Glyph, and only the Unique, the Leader of the
Few, knew more than that.

The previous Unique, Ndugu Maumivu-Brother Pain-had taught Kifo all he knew of the mysteries even
as he lay dying, kept alive by money-powered medical machines only just long enough to finish his
instructions. Kifo was the sole man living who knew the secrets; more, he had himself added to them,
divining greater depths, and his death, did it come suddenly and unexpected, would put an end to the
knowledge. The Unique must take care that such a thing did not happen. Thus the vouch, standing
vigilant, ready to defend Kifo's body from illness or injury at any instant.

Kifo smiled at that thought. For a man whose holy-nom meant "Brother Death" to be protected by the
acme of galactic civilization carried with it a certain irony he appreciated.

The smile faded. No time for such thoughts, not when he was about to take in hand the Sacred Glyph.
He banished the humor from his mind, composed himself, took a deep breath and allowed most of it to
escape. Reached for the Glyph.