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

The sky was yellow dust, spilling blood-colored rain.
Buglet turned white beneath her grime, and Davey clenched his fists.
"A very remarkable planet." San Seven spoke fast without looking at them. "It's off in
Universe Nine. It does have creatures enough in the seaтАФI've seen great dark monsters fighting,
things as big as starships. But its native life never adapted to dry land. You premen will have the
continents all to yourselves."
"NoтАФno trees!" Buglet whispered. "No grass." "Not yet. But we're working to establish
Terran land life." "I don't like it," Davey muttered. "We won't go there." "You'll own the whole
planet." San Seven tried to smile. "And we're trying to improve it for you. We've had a pilot
station there for several centuries." The picture flickered to show a row of rusting metal huts
beside a strip of rock blasted fiat for landing shuttles. The huts were banked high with dirty
snow, and nothing moved anywhere. "We're trying to terraform the planet, but the engineers
have run into problems. Terran plants die. Seeds don't sprout. Even our engineers are sterile
there; they're reporting some unknown lethal factor that kills all desire." "So we'll die there."
"There won't be childrenтАФbut of course the starships will bring supplies. The Lord Belthar
will preserve you." "We won't go."
"The Lord says you will." As if to soften that hard finality, San Seven added, "Though you'll
probably be allowed to stay here till the lake begins to fill."
He tapped the buttons again, to show them Quelf's new dam, a dark ridge reaching from one
bleak red mesa to another, construction machines still swarming over it.
"But we premen made you," Buglet was whispering. "We made the mumen and the gods. Now
you want to take the last poor scrap of our own world and send us off to dieтАФ"
 "I'm sorry." San Seven reached to touch her shoulder, but she shrank from his hand. "Our Lord
is merciful," he insisted. "You can't blame him and you can't blame us. My father says the whole
trouble is that you premen just can't compete, because too many of your ancestors were spoiled
creations." Davey stiffened angrily.
"It's only what my father says." San Seven moved cautiously back. "After all, the Creators
were still premen. Though I know they did make us and the gods, they often bungled. Their
greatest failure was the Fourth CreationтАФthe demons that the Lord Belthar had to destroy. But
my father says there were other misbegotten things that escaped from the lab to corrupt the blood
of the premen. By now, my father says, you're all stepchildren of the Creators." Buglet caught
Davey's lifted arm.
"But of course you aren't to blame, any more than we are." He smiled at them gently. "Though
it's simply stupid to expect some new god to save you. I know the Creators were premen, but the
Creation is over. The Lord Belthar won't let it happen again."
He hurried them back to the gameroom to let them play with his toys. Instead, Davey sat down
to look at a book. The live pictures delighted him, changing scenes as he moved his finger along
the edge of the page, but the text baffled him with many-colored patterns that flashed on and off
too fast for him to see their shapes.
Hopefully he asked, "Can you teach me how to read?"
"Our symbology doesn't work like preman print." San Seven looked apologetic. "It isn't linear,
with one simple symbol after another. It's multiplex instead. Each display is a whole gestalt. I'm
afraid it's too hard for you. Come on down to the basement. There's a free-fall gym you'll enjoy."
Trying to forget that they were premen, they followed him down to the gym. They did enjoy
the null-G belts, flying as easily as levitating gods, till San Seven called them to meet his mother.
A calm, cheery woman, she made them wash themselves in a steamy, strange-smelling room and
dressed them in her son's clothing. She said they must start to the preman school.
San Seven went with them on the first day to show them what to do, but his own training came
from special machines in a room at the agency. When Davey asked to use these, he flushed and
mumbled that they were too difficult for premen.