"Wolfe, Gene - The Urth Of The New Sun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

to climb the Great Keep, it had never occurred to me that
the Great Keep itself might wish to climb the sky; I knew
better now. But this ship at least was climbing beyond the
sky, and I wanted to climb with her.
The higher I mounted, the easier and the more dangerous
my climb became. No fraction of weight remained to
me. Again and again I leaped, caught some sheet or
halyard, scrambled until I had my feet on it, and leaped
once more.
After a dozen such ascents, it struck me that there was
no reason to stop until I reached the highest point on the
mast--that one jump would take me there, if only I did
not prevent it. Then I rose like a Midsummer's Eve rocket;
I could readily have imagined that I whistled as they did or
trailed a plume of red and blue sparks.
Sails and cables flew past in an infinite procession. Once
I seemed to see, suspended (as it appeared) in the space
between two sails, an indistinct golden shape veined with
crimson; insofar as I considered it at all, I supposed it to be
an instrument positioned where it might be near the
stars--or possibly only an object carelessly left on deck
until some minor change in course had permitted it to float
away.
And still I shot upward.
The maintop came into view. I reached for a halyard.
They were hardly thicker than my finger now, though every
sail would have covered ten score of meadows.
I had misjudged, and the halyard was just beyond my
grasp. Another flashed by.
And another--three cubits out of reach at least.
I tried to twist like a swimmer but could do no more
than lift my knee. The shining cables of the rigging had
been widely separated even far below, where there were for
this single mast more than a hundred. None now remained
but the startop shroud. My fingers brushed it but could not
grasp it.


Chapter II -- The Fifth Sailor


THE END of my life had come, and I knew it. Aboard
the _Samru_, they had trailed a long rope from the stern as
an aid to any sailor who might fall overboard. Whether our
ship towed such a line, I did not know; but even if it did, it
would have done me no good. My difficulty (my tragedy, I
am tempted to write) was not that I had fallen from the rail
and drifted aft of the rudder, but that I had risen above the
entire forest of masts. And thus I continued to rise--or
rather, to leave the ship, for I might as easily have been