"Jack vance - Tschai 2 - Servants of the Wankh" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

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SERVANTS OF THE WANKH



CHAPTER ONE
Two THOUSAND MILES east of Pera, over the heart of the Dead Steppe, the
sky-raft faltered, flew smoothly for a moment, then jerked and bucked in a most
ominous fashion. Adam Reith looked aft in dismay, then ran to the control
belvedere. Lifting the voluted bronze housing, he peered here and there among
the scrolls, floral hatchings, grinning imp faces which almost mischievously
camouflaged the engine.* He was joined by the Dirdirman Ankhe at afram Anacho.
Reith asked, "Do you know what's wrong?"
Anacho pinched up his pale nostrils, muttered something about an "antiquated
Chasch farrago" and "insane expedition to begin with." Reith, accustomed to the
Dirdirman's foibles, realized that he was too vain to admit ignorance, too
disdainful to avow knowledge so crass.
The raft shuddered again. Simultaneously from a four-pronged case of black
wood to the side of the engine compartment came small rasping noises. Anacho
gave it a lordly rap with his knuckles. The groaning and shuddering ceased.
"Corrosion," said Anacho. "Electromorphic action across a hundred years or
longer. I believe this to be a copy of the unsuccessful Heizakim Bursa, which
the Dirdir abandoned two hundred years ago."
"Can we make repairs?"
"How should I know such things? I would hardly dare touch it.
They stood listening. The engine sighed on without further pause. At last
Reith lowered the housing. The two returned forward.
Traz lay curled on a settee after standing a night watch. On the green
crush-cushioned seat under the ornate bow lantern sat the Flower of Cath, one
leg tucked beneath the other, head on her forearms, staring eastward toward
Cath. So had she huddled for hours, hair blowing in the wind, speaking no word
to anyone. Reith found her conduct perplexing. At Pera she had yearned for Cath;
she could talk of nothing else but the ease and grace of Blue Jade Palace, of
her father's gratitude if Reith would only bring her home. She had described
wonderful balls, extravaganzas, water-parties, masques according to the turn of
the "round." ("Round? What did she mean by 'round'?" asked Reith. Ylin-Ylan, the
Flower of Cath, laughed excitedly. "It's just the way things are, and how they
become! Everybody must know and the clever ones anticipate; that's why they're
clever! It's all such fun!") Now that the journey to Cath was actually underway
the Flower's mood had altered. She had become pensive, remote, and evaded all
questions as to the source of her abstraction. Reith shrugged and turned away.
Their intimacy was at an end: all for the best, or so he told himself. Still,
the question nagged at him: why? His purpose in flying to Cath was twofold:
first, to fulfill his promise to the girl; secondly, to find, or so he hoped, a
technical basis to permit the construction of a spaceboat, no matter how small
or crude. If he could rely upon the cooperation of the Blue Jade Lord, so much
the better. Indeed, such sponsorship was a necessity.
The route to Cath lay across the Dead Steppe, south under the Ojzanalai
Mountains, northeast along the Lok Lu Steppe, across the Zhaarken or the Wild