"Jack Vance - The Last Castle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

an inherent irreverence which no amount of discipline or
tutelage could overcome. Spying Xanten, they emitted a
chorus of rude jeers: "Somebody wants a ride! Heavy thing!"
"Why don't the self-anointed two-footers grow wings for
themselves?" "My friend, never trust a Bird! We'll sky you,
then fling you down on your fundament!"
"Quiet!" called Xanten. "I need six fast, silent Birds, upon
an important mission. Are any capable of such a task?"
"Are any capable, he asks!" "A ros ros ros! When none of
us have flown for a week!" "Silence? We'll give you silence,
yellow and black!"
"Come then. You. You. You of the wise eye. You there.
You with the cocked shoulder. You with the green pompon.
To the basket."
The Birds designated, jeering, grumbling, reviling the Peas-
ants, allowed their syrup sacs to be filled, then flapped to the
wicker seat where Xanten waited. "To the space depot at
Vincenne," he told them. "Fly high and silently. Enemies are
abroad. We must learn what harm if any has been done to the
spaceships."
"To the depot then!" Each Bird seized a length of rope tied
to an overhead framework; the chair was yanked up with a
jerk calculated to rattle Xanten's teeth, and off they flew,
laughing, cursing each other for not supporting more of the
. load, but eventually all accommodating themselves to the task
apd flying with a coordinated flapping of the thirty-six sets of
wings. To Xanten's relief, their garrulity lessened; silently
they flew south, at a speed of fifty or sixty miles per hour.
The afternoon was already waning. The ancient country-
side, scene to so many comings and goings, so much triumph
and so much disaster, was laoed with long black shadows.
Looking down, Xanten reflected that though the human stock
was native to this soil, and though his immediate ancestors
had maintained their holdings for seven hundred years, Earth
still seemed an alien world.
The reason of course was by no means mysterious or
rooted in paradox. After the Six-Star War, Earth had lain
fallow for three thousand years, unpopulated save for a
handful of anguished wretches who somehow had survived
the cataclysm and who had become semi-barbaric Nomads.
Then seven hundred years ago certain rich lords of Altair,
motivated to some extent by political disaffection, but no less
by caprice, had decided to return to Earth. Such was the
origin of the nine great strongholds, the resident gentlefolk
and the staffs of specialized andromorphs.
Xanten flew over an area where an antiquarian had di-
rected excavations, revealing a plaza flagged with white stone,
a broken obelisk, a tumbled statue. The sight, by some trick
of association, stimulated Xanten's mind to an astonishing
vision, so simple and yet so grand that he looked around, in