"Jack Williamson - Brother to Demons, Brother to Gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williamson Jack)

"I prefer to visit the people at Redrock."
"People?" His rising tones echoed unthinking scorn. "They're miserable animals. Wallowing
in their own filth. So squalid that the Lord Belthar had ordered their removalтАФ"
"That's why I'm here. The premen created us. I'm afraid that fact has been forgotten. I want to
see them while there's time."
"Forgiveness!" he protested. "But those stinking beasts at Redrock are the last dregs of a dying
race. The real Creators died for their final folly a thousand years ago. If Your Divinity is
concerned with history, we humbly suggest the Museum of Terran Evolution in Antarctica.
There's a Smithwick Memorial Hall, with authentic reconstructions of the genetic engineers in
their laboratoryтАФ"
"Take me to the reservation."
"Your Divinity, we obey."
Redrock was a straggle of brown mud huts beside an irrigation ditch that was also a sewer.
Four larger buildings enclosed the grassless plaza: the jail, the town hall, and the twin chapels of
Thar and Bel, dedicated to the god of Earth in his major aspects of wisdom and love.
By Quelf's command, old wooden doors wore new blue paint. Litter had been raked from the
mud-rutted road, and a strip of gold carpet rolled along it from the chapel of Bel on the plaza to
the agency mansion on its green-terraced hill above the odors and vermin of the town.
The premen had been warned, and the landing skimmer was greeted with an apprehensive
hush. The sacred procession emerged on the plaza and marched up the carpet toward the agency.
Two mutant soldiers stalked ahead, the dry sun burning on black crests and ruby scales. The
halfgod followed, dark nose held high, as if offended by every reek around him. Four blue
sacristans carried the canopied chair of honor, the divine tourist smiling out as if delighted with
everything she saw.
A dog barked.
A child screamed.
A brown rat slithered out of an alley, darted across the carpet. A dirty mongrel darted after it,
yelping with excitement. A small naked boy splashed across the green-scummed ditch, running
after the dog. They veered toward the goddess.
Quelf hissed an order. One muman guardian spun to face the intrusion. Lightning stabbed
from its black-lensed crest. The dog's body spun across the carpet and tumbled into a puddle.
"Make way!" the halfgod shouted. "Make way for Her Divinity!"
The boy looked five years old. Brown and thin, he wore only splashes and smears of drying
mud. Planted at the center of the gold carpet, he stared up at the holy procession with dark, wet
eyes.
"YouтАФ" A sob racked and choked him. "You killed Spot!"
 "Davey!" a tiny girl shrieked from the alley behind him. "Come away, Davey. Don't let the
deadeyes hurt you."
The boy stood fast.
"Off!" the halfgod snapped. "Off the road!"
"Killer!" The boy shook his grimy fist. "I'll make you sorry!"
"What" Anger stiffened Quelf. "You insolent pup!"
He gestured at the scar-marked mumen. Both bent their lenses toward the boy. Violent
pathmaker beams hissed around him. Yowling, the naked girl came splashing to him through the
gutter.
"Hold everything!"
The goddess froze them with that gold-toned command. Levitating from the chair, she came
sailing over the halfgod and the mumen and sank toward the carpet in front of the boy. Smiling,
she paused to watch the girl, who was darting to pick up the dog.
"Who are you children?"