"Jack Williamson - Afterlife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williamson Jack)

The doctor came down from the coach to a table set up in front of the black tent. Robed
like the schoolmaster in gold and black velvet, he had grown grayer and fatter than I
recalled him. Silently, he spread his arms to urge us forward. The music rose again. The
blacksmith's deserted wife hobbled toward him. Arthritic and blind, she leaned on her
limping son.

"Eat. Drink." Intoning the words, the doctor gestured at a platter and a pitcher on the table.
"One little wafer and one small sip of this veronic fluid will break the chains of flesh to set
you free. But you must be warned."

He dropped his voice and raised his hands.

"This final feast is only for those who trust the Agent and accept the miracle of his
resurrection. Once you have felt the joy of eternity, there is no turning back. I must remind
you also that you take nothing with you."

Tears washing white channels down his dark-grimed face, the blacksmith's son shouted
the warning into his mother's ear. She mumbled and opened her mouth. He dropped
jingling coins into a basket on the table. The doctor laid a tiny white wafer on her tongue,
put a little glass of a blood-red liquid to her drooling lips. She gulped it down. Two men in
black took her arms to help her into the tent.

Next came the baker's old and helpless father, moaning on a stretcher carried by the baker
and his helper. A dozen others shuffled forward. Finally my sister. Tears on her face, she
hugged our mother and our father, darted to startle the blacksmith's son with a kiss and a
quick embrace, and fell into the line. I caught her arm to pull her back.

"Let her go." My father was hoarse with pain. "She has damned herself."

The solemn music rose again. The line crept forward, my sister the last. My father knelt on
the ground, murmuring a prayer. My mother stood silently sobbing. My sister dropped
something into the basket, the gold necklace and gold earrings the blacksmith's son had
given her. I heard a stifled moan from him. Smiling, she swallowed the wafer and the liquid.
My mother cried out, shrill with pain. My sister looked back and tried to speak, but her voice
was already gone. Her features stiffened. She staggered. The black robes hustled her into
the tent.

With a final flourish, the music ceased. The doctor intoned a solemn assurance that these
beloved beings were happy now, forever free from grief and care. He and the
schoolmaster climbed back into the coach. The musicians dismantled their instruments
and knocked down the platform where they had stood. They rolled up the black tent,
loaded everything on the wagon, and followed the coach back to the road down the river.

The bodies were left lying in a row on the ground. My mother knelt to close my sister's
eyes. My father stood above them to beg the Lord that all their sins and blunders might be
forgiven and their souls received into God's own paradise. Neighbor men toiled all night,
nailing coffins together. Next day a pastor came from the village below to preach a farewell
service before the boxes were lowered into the row of new graves.

One morning next spring, while my mother was making breakfast, we saw a bright silver