"Robert F. Young - In Saturn's Rings" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

SATURN'S RINGS
BY ROBERT F. YOUNG
ILLUSTRATED BY LAWRENCE

The weird old castle on Saturn's moon was a fortress тАФ protecting a dynasty and a terrible
secret!

I

The summer of Matthew North's life was a dream so deep in his past that he sometimes doubted
whether he had really dreamed it. Autumn had set in eons ago, it seemed, and now winter was on hand.
He did not find its cold and bitter breath the least bit to his liking.
Once again, pale Hyperion was coming forth to meet him. Once again, resplendent Saturn was
advancing in her ice-blue gown. How many times before had mother and daughter greeted him at
journey's end? How many times before had they seen his sleek jettractor emerge from the immensities
with a big black egg impaled upon its prow?
Too many times.
Well, there would be no more times. The Bimini base was gone, and the mysterious source of the
many payloads which he and the other jettractor-pilots had delivered to the House of Christopoulos
down through the centuries was buried beneath the raging waters of a newborn sea. The unanticipated
tectonic revolution had begun mere hours after he had blasted off from the little Proxima Centauri planet
which Nick the Greek had christened "Bimini" some five hundred years ago.
For a long while Matthew had been in a state of shock. Recovering from it, he had radioed the news
on ahead. He could just as well have waited, though, and delivered the news by word of mouth, for while
radio waves exceeded his jet-tractor's near-photic velocity, they did not exceed it by very much. In all
probability the message had preceded his arrival by no more than a few weeks.
Such proved to be the case. Message received last week, the words that suddenly spelled
themselves out on the luminous bulletin-panel informed him. Establish capsule in orbit, memorize but
do not record readings, then land and proceed to the Hostel, there to await further instructions. тАФ
Zeus Christopoulos IX.
"Orders acknowledged, sir," said Matthew North. "Will proceed as directed."

Precisely as directed. One does I not question the commands of God, no matter how unorthodox
those commands may be. And to Matthew North, Zeus Christopoulos IX was God, just as the previous
male descendants of Nick the Greek had been God. The fact that Matthew had never laid eyes on any of
these gods argued for rather than against their divinity, and the fact that he had never been permitted to
set foot inside the House of Christopoulos bolstered rather than undermined his respect for them.
Choosing a polar orbit of maximum altitude, he reduced the jet-tractor's momentum to the velocity he
wanted. Then, after mentally recording his instrument readings, he disengaged the capsule and fired his
retros. He watched the huge egg-shaped container dwindle into the blue-black distances and fade from
sight. Finally he began orbiting in.
Saturn hove into sight with each crossing of the twilight belt, but each time he saw not Saturn but a
rich and dazzling jewel hanging upon the Brobdingnagian cheek of the Ethiope goddess Space тАФ the
black bitch-goddess of vast immensities and burning suns at whose cold and unfeeling feet he had laid the
best years of his life. "For you, Zeus, I did this thing," he said, unconsciously lumping the successive heirs
into a single entity. "For you I put my years upon the block in order that your House might never be
without the precious payloads I have delivered to its door тАФ payloads I have never seen and do not
even know the nature of. And now they are no more.
 "Now I have come home to die."
But he had no true right to regret, and he knew it. He had put his years upon the block, yes тАФ but no