"Dan Simmons - The rise of Endymion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Simmons Dan)

precisely how many would be in chapel for early Mass: four -- old M. Sanchez, the ancient widow
who was rumored to have murdered her husband in a dust storm sixty-two years before, the Perell
twins who -- for unknown reasons -- preferred the old run-down church to the spotless and air-
conditioned company chapel on the mining reservation, and the mysterious old man with the
radiation-scarred face who knelt in the rearmost pew and never took Communion.
There was a dust storm blowing -- there was always a dust storm blowing -- and Father de Soya
had to run the last thirty meters from his adobe parish house to the church sacristy, a
transparent fiberplastic hood over his head and shoulders to protect his cassock and biretta, his
breviary tucked deep in his cassock pocket to keep it clean. It did not work. Every evening when
he removed his cassock or hung his biretta on a hook, the sand fell out in a red cascade, like
dried blood from a broken hourglass. And every morning when he opened his breviary, sand gritted


file:///F|/rah/Dan%20Simmons/Simmons,%20Dan%20-%2004%20-%20The%20Rise%20of%20Endymion.txt (7 of 319) [1/15/03 6:08:23 PM]
 file:///F|/rah/Dan%20Simmons/Simmons,%20Dan%20-%2004%20-%20The%20Rise%20of%20Endymion.txt

between the pages and soiled his fingers.
"Good morning, Father," said Pablo as the priest hurried into the sacristy and slid the cracked
weather seals around the door frame.
"Good morning, Pablo, my most faithful altar boy," said Father de Soya. Actually, the priest
silently corrected himself, Pablo was his only altar boy. A simple child -- simple in the ancient
sense of the word as mentally slow as well as in the sense of being honest, sincere, loyal, and
friendly -- Pablo was there to help de Soya serve Mass every weekday morning at 0630 hours and
twice on Sunday -- although only the same four people came to the early morning Sunday Mass and
half a dozen of the boxite miners to the later Mass.
The boy nodded his head and grinned again, the smile disappearing for a moment as he pulled on
his clean, starched surplice over his altar-boy robes.
Father de Soya walked past the child, ruffling his dark hair as he did so, and opened the tall
vestment chest. The morning had grown as dark as the high-desert night as the dust storm swallowed
the sunrise, and the only illumination in the cold, bare room was from the fluttering sacristy
lamp.
De Soya genuflected, prayed earnestly for a moment, and began donning the vestments of his
profession.
For two decades, as Father Captain de Soya of the Pax Fleet, commander of torchships such as
the Balthasar, Federico de Soya had dressed himself in uniforms where the cross and collar were
the only signs of his priesthood.
He had worn plaskev battle armor, spacesuits, tactical com implants, datumplane goggles,
godgloves -- all of the paraphernalia of a torchship captain -- but none of those items touched
him and moved him as much as these simple vestments of a parish priest. In the four years since
Father Captain de Soya had been stripped of his rank of captain and removed from Fleet service, he
had rediscovered his original vocation.
De Soya pulled on the amice that slipped over his head like a gown and fell to his ankles.
The amice was white linen and immaculate despite the incessant dust storms, as was the alb that
slid on next. He set the cincture around his waist, whispering a prayer as he did so.
Then he raised the white stole from the vestment chest, held it reverently a moment in both
hands, and then placed it around his neck, crossing the two strips of silk. Behind him, Pablo was
bustling around the little room, putting away his filthy outside boots and pulling on the cheap
fiberplastic running shoes his mother had told him to keep here just for Mass.
Father de Soya set his tunible in place, the outer garment showing a T-cross in front. It was
white with a subtle purple piping: he would be saying a Mass of Benediction this morning while