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

avoid Cath was to relinquish his best possibility of building a spaceboat. The
only alternative then would be to steal a spaceship, from the Dirdir, or Wankh,
or, least appealing of all, from the Blue Chasch: all in all, a nerve-tingling
prospect. Reith asked, "Why should I be less acceptable than you or Traz?
Because of the 'erotic accommodation'?"
"Naturally not. The Yao concern themselves with systematics rather than
deeds. I am surprised to find you so undiscerning."
"Blame it on my amnesia," said Reith.
Anacho shrugged. "In the first place-possibly due to your 'amnesia' you have
no quality, no role, no place in the Cath 'round.' As a nondescript, you
constitute a distraction, a zizylbeast in a ballroom. Secondly, and more
poignant, is your point of view, which is not fashionable in contemporary Cath."
"By this you mean my 'obsession'?"
"Unfortunately," said Anacho, "it is similar to an hysteria which
distinguished a previous cycle of the 'round.' A hundred and fifty years* ago, a
coterie of Dirdirmen were expelled from the academies at Eliasir and Anismna for
the crime of promulgating fantasy. They brought their espousements to Cath, and
stimulated a tendentious vogue: the Society of Yearning Refluxives, or the
'cult.' The articles of faith defied established fact. It was asserted that all
men, Dirdirmen and sub-men alike, were immigrants from a far planet in the
constellation Clari: a paradise where the hopes of humanity have been realized.
Enthusiasm for the 'cult' galvanized Cath; a radio transmitter was constructed
and signals were projected toward Clari. Somewhere, the activity was resented;
someone launched torpedoes which devastated Settra and Ballisidre. The Dirdir
are commonly held responsible, but this is absurd; why should they trouble
themselves? I assure you that they are much too distant, too uninterested.
"Regardless of agency, the deed was done. Settra and Ballisidre were laid
low, the 'cult' was discredited; the Dirdirmen were expelled; the 'round' swung
back to orthodoxy. Now even to mention the 'cult' is considered vulgarity, and
so we arrive at your case. Clearly you have encountered and assimilated 'cult'
dogma; it now manifests itself in your attitudes, your acts, your goals. You
seem unable to distinguish fact from fancy. To speak bluntly, you are so
disoriented in this regard as to suggest psychic disorder."
Reith closed his mouth on a wild laugh; it would only reinforce Anacho's
doubts as to his sanity. A dozen remarks rose to his tongue; he restrained them
all. At last he said, "All else aside, I appreciate your candor."
"Not at all," said the Dirdirman serenely. "I imagine that I have clarified
the nature of the girl's apprehension."
The Dirdirman blinked up at the pink moon Az. "So long as she was outside the
'round' at Pera and elsewhere, she made sympathetic allowances. But now return
to Cath is imminent..." He said no more, and presently went to his couch in the
saloon.
Reith went to the forward pulpit under the great bow lantern. A cool draft of
air fanned his face; the raft drifted idly about the treetop. From the ground
came a furtive crackle of footsteps. Reith listened; they halted, then resumed
and diminished off under the trees. Reith looked up into the sky where pink Az,
blue Braz careened. He looked back at the deck-house where slept his comrades: a
boy of the Emblem nomads, a clown-faced man evolved toward a race of gaunt
aliens; a beautiful girl of the Yao, who thought him mad. Below sounded a new
pad of footsteps. Perhaps he was mad indeed ...