"Robert Charles Wilson - Julian- A Christmas Story" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Robert Charles)

Please tell Father that I value his advice, and that it has already served me usefully. Yrs. etc.
once again, Adam.

"You've written a letter," Sam observed as he came to rush me to my horse. "But have you given any
thought to how you might mail it?"

I confessed that I had not.

"The Reservist can carry it," said Julian, who had already mounted his horse.

The Reservist was also mounted, but with his hands tied behind him, as it was Sam's final conclusion
that we should set him loose with the horse headed west, where he would encounter more troops before
very long. He was awake but, as I have said, sullen; and he barked, "I'm nobody's damned mailman!"

I addressed the message, and Julian took it and tucked it into the Reservist's saddlebag. Despite his
youth, and despite the slightly dilapidated condition of his hair and clothing, Julian sat tall in the saddle. I
had never thought of him as high-born until that moment, when an aspect of command seemed to enter
his body and his voice. He said to the Reservist, "We treated you kindlyтАФ"

The Reservist uttered an oath.

"Be quiet. You were injured in the conflict, but we took you prisoner, and we've treated you in a
more gentlemanly fashion than we were when the conditions were reversed. I am a ComstockтАФat least
for the momentтАФand I won't be spoken to crudely by an infantryman, at any price. You'll deliver this
boy's message, and you'll do it gratefully."

The Reservist was clearly awed by the assertion that Julian was a ComstockтАФhe had been laboring
under the assumption that we were mere village runawaysтАФbut he screwed up his courage and said,
"Why should I?"

"Because it's the Christian thing to do," Julian said, "and if this argument with my uncle is ever settled,
the power to remove your head from your shoulders may well reside in my hands. Does that make sense
to you, soldier?"

The Reservist allowed that it did.

***
And so we rode out that Christmas morning from the ruins in which the Tipmen had discovered the
HISTORY OF MANKIND IN SPACE, which still resided in my back-satchel, vagrant memory of a
half-forgotten past.

My mind was a confusion of ideas and anxieties, but I found myself recalling what Julian had said,
long ago it now seemed, about DNA, and how it aspired to perfect replication but progressed by
remembering itself imperfectly. It might be true, I thought, because our lives were like thatтАФtime itself
was like that, every moment dying and pregnant with its own distorted reflection. Today was Christmas:
which Julian claimed had once been a pagan holiday, dedicated to Sol Invictus or some other Roman
god; but which had evolved into the familiar celebration of the present, and was no less dear because of
it.

(I imagined I could hear the Christmas bells ringing from the Dominion Hall at Wiliams Ford, though