"Reed, Robert - The majesty of angels" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

ROBERT REED

THE MAJESTY OF ANGELS

THE DEAD ARE DRESSED TO travel. Their clothes come in every fashion, but always comfortable and practical and familiar. None of them are carrying luggage, because what are possessions? Temporary, and imperfect. Everything worthwhile has come here. These people are here, and nothing else matters.
So many, I declare.
Too many! we blurt in astonishment.
The overseer explains what has happened. An ancient soul wearing a big woman's body, she relates the horrific and tragic with effortless, even graceful dignity. Dignity is vital to our work. She tells us what she knows and nothing else, and it is only our training and our dignified nature that keep us from screaming in anguish, demanding to know how such awful things can happen.
How many teams will be helping us today?
I have to ask it.
The overseer admits that every available team has been assembled, plus the full corps of reserves, and every trainee, and the trainees' teachers, and even the most venerable members of the old administrative echelons.
And they won't be enough, I'm thinking. Not nearly enough.
But with a steadying voice, she reminds us of who we are. Do your walk-throughs, she urges. Go on, now. Go!
Walk-throughs are essential.
We show ourselves to the newly dead. That's how it begins. Let them see a face. Let them feel close to you. Give them an opportunity to find qualities familiar and reassuring in that very careful picture you present to them.
Our team is a dozen, including our overseer: Two male bodies, and the rest female. Humans accept these proportions best. They also prefer uniforms, and on this wicked day, we wear dark blue-gray suits with false pockets and narrow gold trim and neat little buttons of brass. To every eye, we look important. Ennobled. Creatures of thorough and perfect competence. I normally cherish this ritual. This walk-through business. My body is tall and young and decidedly female. The crowd parts for me and the dead men can't help but stare. I have long legs and a long, sturdy gait. Countless penises stiffen in my presence. It makes the men grateful, discovering that in death they have held on to this most treasured magic.
A thousand languages carry up toward the illusion of a ceiling.
"She looks like a stewardess," the multitude declares.
One man forgets to step out of my way. He stares at me, particularly at the pin riding above my left breast. He expects to see a crucifix or an Islamic crescent, but the pin is neither. Wearing a puzzled expression, he stands in my way, and I gracefully dance around him, and after I have passed by, he blurts, "Did you see her jewelry?"
"The sideways eight?" says a young woman. "So what's that about?"
"It's mathematical," he explains. "To me, it means infinity."
"Huh," says the woman. "I guess that makes sense, doesn't it?"
Something about the man catches my interest. I'm past him, but I'm lingering, too. His name is Tom. He lived in Oregon. He has two ex-wives and no children, and since he was ten years old, he hasn't believed either in God or Heaven.
"Isn't this just wonderful?" asks the young woman.
Her name is Julianna and she was raised Catholic.
"Things looked so awful," she says with a beaming smile. "And suddenly, this...!"
Tom nods, asking, "So how'd you die?"
Surprised by his question, Julianna blinks and stares.
With a crooked grin, Tom explains himself. "I was riding my bike. It was...I don't know...sometime last week. I tried to beat the light, and a city bus plowed into me." He laughs amiably, faintly embarrassed by his incompetence. "Right now, just being able to stand and hold my guts inside me...well, that's a major accomplishment!" His laughter thins. Squinting, he adds, "The last thing I remember, I was being wheeled back to surgery. Internal bleeding, I guess...I couldn't breathe...and I remember the orderly pushing me down this long, long hallway ...."
Julianna touches him. Her hand is warm and a little sticky.
"You really don't know," she says. "Do you?"
"Know what?"
"Something went wrong in the sky," she tells him. "A few days ago, without warning...it just sort of happened ...."
"In the sky?"
"Something exploded," she admits.
"What something? A star?"
"No, it wasn't that," says Julianna. "On the news, they said it might be a quasar. A little one that happened to be close to the Earth --"
"A quasar?"
People grow quiet, eavesdropping on their conversation.
"A black hole started eating gas clouds and stars," Julianna explains, "and there was this terrific light --"
"I know what a quasar is," Tom says. "It's bright, sure, but it's also very, very distant. Billions of light-years removed from us, and perfectly safe, and I don't see how one of them can just appear one day, without warning."
Julianna shrugs. "Maybe our quasar didn't know your rules."
With his own kind of dignity, Tom absorbs the horrific news. Sad brown eyes look at the surrounding faces. Perhaps he notices that most of the faces are young. Children outnumber the elderly by a long measure. Finally with a soft, hurting voice, he asks, "What about the world? And the people?"
"Dead," says Julianna. "All dead."
More than six billion souls were killed in a heartbeat.
"You were sick," she promises. "Nobody told you what was happening, I bet. I bet not." And again, she touches him.
AN ENORMOUS MACHINE assembles itself around the multitudes. Our passengers find themselves standing inside what resembles the cabin of an airliner or a modern train; yet this machine feels infinitely superior to anything human- built. The ceiling is low but not smothering and feels soft to the touch like treasured old leather. The floor is a carpet of ankle-deep green grass. Ambient sounds hint at power below and great encompassing strength. This interior is a single round room. An enormous room. Padded seats are laid out in neat concentric rings. Normally there is a healthy distance between seats, save in cases where a family or a group of dear friends died in the same accident or a shared plague. But emergency standards rule today. The seats are packed close, as if everyone is someone's brother or sister. Even a graceful creature has to move with constant care, her long legs dancing from place to place to place.
A routine voyage carries several hundred thousand compliant and thankful souls. But this soul-carriage, built according to our meticulous worst-case scenarios, makes the routine appear simple and small.
Every passenger has a seat waiting. Their name and portrait show in the padded headrest, and everyone begins close to their destination. But even normal days bring problems. Children always run off. Adults want to hunt the loved ones who died before them. My first duty is to help everyone settle, and it is a daunting task. Besides the crush of bodies and the armies of kinetic children, I have to cope with our desperate lack of time.