"E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 12 - Eloise" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

A romantic, a soiled visionary; or perhaps a creature lost in
the mists of deluding drugs. Symbiotes could do that, giving
mystic images in return for food, warmth and safety; repaying
their sometimes willing hosts in the only coin they possessed.

"Eglantine sent me to find you," said Arbush. "He is ready to
leave. Shalout itches to set the course. You have met him?"

"The navigator."

"Exactly. Once he was an expert at his trade, now he is not
what he was." Arbush shrugged. "Are any of us? Yet he can guide
us from world to world, given time. Time and coordinates. The
first he has; the second you are to give him."

"Later," said Dumarest. "When we are well into space."

"And so he is to send us into the unknown," mused the
minstrel. "Sending the five of us, like a hand, hurtling into the
void. A fist to hammer the face of creation. A poetic concept, as I
think you will agree."

"I think that you talk too much and say too little."

"Perhaps." The eyes in their folds of fat moved a little, became
a trifle more hard. Anger? If so he mastered it well. "And
perhaps you talk too little and say too much. There is a message
in silence. Fear, maybe. Distrust certainly. Yet you do not appear
to be a man ruled by fear. Caution, then? If so, how can I blame
you? In this life we all walk on the edge of extinction."

A philosopher of sorts as well as an artist, the fingers which
strummed the gilyre were deft with practiced skill. Dumarest
studied them, noting the tell-tale callouses, the splaying of the
tips. The fingers and other things; the set of the rotund frame,
the position of the feet, the tilt of the head. Men were not always
what they appeared to be; but, as far as he could tell, Arbush was
not one of them.

And, even if he was, it was too late to alter his own plan.
 "And so we leave," said the minstrel softly, the music from the
strings rising a little, taking on a sombre beat, a pulsing rhythm.
"As legend has it that men of old first left their place of birth. To
venture into the empty dark with nothing but hope as their
guide. Shall we find El Dorado? Jackpot? Bonanza? A new Eden?
Camelot? Worlds of mystery and untold wealth lying like jewels
among the stars; lost planets or worlds that are nothing more
than the figment of dreams. Is that what you seek?"

The music rose, loud, imperious, blended chords interspersed