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

money for basic supplies. The Old Architect had always depended upon the largesse of patrons --
large loans never to be paid back -- for such month-to-month survival.
Here in our reassembled desert camp, there were no towns. The only road -- two gravel ruts --
led west into hundreds of miles of emptiness.
I knew this because I had flown over the area in the dropship and driven it in the Old
Architect's groundcar. But about thirty klicks from the compound there was a weekly Indian market
where we had bartered craft items for food and basic materials.
It had been there for years before Aenea's and my arrival; everyone had obviously expected it
to be there forever.
"What do you mean it's gone?" repeated Hussan in a hoarse shout. "Where'd the Indians go? Were
they just cybrid illusions, like Mr. Wright?"
Aenea made a gesture with her hands that I had grown accustomed to over the years -- a graceful
setting-aside motion that I had come to see as a physical analog of the Zen expression "mu,"
which, in the right context, can mean "unask the question."
"The market's gone because we won't need it anymore," said Aenea. "The Indians are real enough -
- Navajo, Apache, Hopi, and Zuni -- but they have their own lives to live, their own experiments
to conduct. Their trading with us has been ... a favor."
The crowd became angry at that, but eventually they settled down again. Bets Kimbal stood.
"What do we do, child?"
Aenea sat on the edge of the stage as if trying to become one with the waiting, expectant
audience. "The Fellowship is over," she said. "That part of our lives has to end."
One of the younger apprentices was shouting from the back of the pavilion. "No it doesn't! Mr.
Wright could still return! He was a cybrid, remember ... a construct! The Core ... or the Lions
and Tigers and Bears ... whoever shaped him can send him back to us ... "
Aenea shook her head, sadly but firmly. "No. Mr. Wright is gone. The Fellowship is over.
Without the food and materials the Indians brought from so far away, this desert camp can't last a
month. We have to go."
It was a young female apprentice named Peret who spoke quietly into the silence. "Where,
Aenea?"
Perhaps it was at this moment that I first realized how this entire group had given themselves
over to the young woman I had known as a child. When the Old Architect was around, giving
lectures, holding forth in seminars and drafting-room bull sessions, leading his flock on picnics
and swimming outings in the mountains, demanding solicitude and the best food, the reality of
Aenea's leadership had been somewhat masked. But now it was evident.
"Yes," someone else called from the center of the rising rows of seats, "where, Aenea?"
My friend opened her hands in another gesture I had learned. Rather than Unask the question,
this one said, You must answer your own question. Aloud, she said, "There are two choices. Each of
you traveled here either by farcaster or through the Time Tombs. You can go back by way of
farcaster ... "
"No!"
"How can we?"
"Never ... I'd rather die!"
"No! The Pax will find us and kill us!"
The cries were immediate and from the heart. It was the sound of terror made verbal. I smelled
fear in the room the way I used to smell it on animals caught in leg traps on the moors of
Hyperion. Aenea lifted a hand and the outcries faded.
"You can return to Pax space by farcaster, or you can stay on Earth and try to fend for
yourself."
There were murmurs and I could hear relief at the option of not returning. I understood that
feeling -- the Pax had come to be a bogeyman to me, as well. The thought of returning there sent