"Jack Vance - The Demon Princes - complete" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

hensions. "My name is Teehalt, Lugo Teehalt. Will you drink?"
Without waiting for assent he signaled one of Smade's young
daughters, a girl of nine or ten, wearing a modest white blouse and
long black skirt. "I'll use whiskey, lass, and serve this gentleman
whatever he decides for himself."

Teehalt appeared to derive strength either from the drink or
from the prospect of conversation. His voice became firmer, his
eyes clearer and brighter. "How long have you been out?"

"Four or five months," said Gersen, in his role oflocater. "I've
seen nothing but rock and mud and sulfar ... I don't know whether
it's worth the toil."

Teehalt smiled, nodded slowly. "But stillтАФisn't there always
excitement? The star gleams and lights up its circlet of planets. And
you ask yourself, will it be now? And time after dme: the smoke
and ammonia, the weird crystals, the winds of monoxide, the rains
of acid. But you go on and on and on. Perhaps in the region ahead
the elements coalesce into nobler forms. Of course it's the same
slime and black trap and methane snow. And then suddenly: there
it is. Utter beauty. ..."

Gersen sipped his whiskey without comment. Teehalt appar-
ently was a gentleman, well-mannered and educated, sadly come
down in the world.

Teehalt continued, half talking to himself. "Where the luck lies,
that I don't know. I'm sure of nothing. Good luck looks to be bad
luck, disappointment seems happier than success. . .. But then, bad
luck I would never have recognized as good luck, and called it bad
luck still, and who can confuse disappointment with success? Not
I. So it's all one and life proceeds regardless."
Gersen began to relax. This sort of incoherence, at once en-
gaging and suggestive of a deeper wisdom, could not be imagined
among his enemies. Unless they hired a madman? Gersen made a
cautious contribution: "Uncertainty hurts more than ignorance."

Teehalt inspected him with respect, as if the statement had been
one of profound wisdom. "You can't believe that a man is the better
for ignorance?"

"Cases vary," said Gersen, in as easy and light a manner as was
natural to him. "It's clear that uncertainty breeds indecision, which

THE STAR KING 9

is a dead halt. An ignorant man can act. As for right or wrongтАФ

each man to his own answer. There never has been a true consen-