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

Surprised, Matthew said, "It has not gone unrewarded."
"But it has not been rewarded in full." She glanced at the magnified dial of her ring-watch. "It is now
six-twenty. At eight-thirty you will arrive at the House of Christopoulos for dinner. That is an order. Will
you obey it?"
Weakness came into Matthew's knees and sent his legs to trembling. His gratitude was so great that
he could barely speak. "Yes тАФ yes, I will obey it. And thank you."
"I will expect you then."
She turned and walked out of the Hostel, her cloak snowsqualling around her. She climbed into the
glide-car in which she had come, the glide-car hummed to life, and a moment later she was gone.

IV

The Alexander the Great, roguard stationed before the multi-columned entrance of the
House was a product of the "realistic school" of android manufacturing. He was slightly larger than his
long-dead flesh-and-blood prototype, but in all other respects he was a faithful reproduction. He
possessed not only his prototype's character but his prototype's specialized knowledge as well.
The look he bestowed upon Old Matt North artfully combined aristocratic arrogance and militaristic
contempt. When Matthew said, "I'm Matthew North тАФ Mrs. Zeus Christopoulos IX is expecting me,"
the roguard acted as though he hadn't heard. Nevertheless, he relayed the information into the tiny radio
attached to his helmet.
A moment later Hera Christopoulos' imperious voice sounded crisply on the night air: "Well, let him
in, you synthetic snob! I told you this afternoon that you were to pass him."'
Without a word Alexander the the Great stepped to one side and pointed toward the multicolumned
facade of the House of Christopoulos with his laser-lance.
Still shivering from his wind-beset walk across the flats, Matthew approached the Pentelic marble
steps, all the while staring nervously up at the frieze upon which were carved bas-reliefs pf the divine
consorts of the original Zeus тАФ Metis, Maia, Leto, Dione, Demeter, Mnemosyne, Themis, and
Eurynome. Above the cornice and centered beneath the peak of the gable was a big bas-relief of Hera
that rather startlingly resembled the flesh-and-blood Hera with whom he was about to break bread.
Flanking it on either side, in attitudes of abject adoration, were bas-reliefs of various mortals who had
contributed to the glory that was Greece. Some of them he recognized from the pictured busts and
sculptures he had viewed on his jettractor's library-tape: Thucydides, Heraclitus, Aristotle, Plato,
Epicurus, Sophocles. One of the figures was groveling at her feet. It was a bas-relief of Homer.
Night had fallen an hour ago, in accordance with Hyperion's neorotational period established some
five centuries ago at the instigation of Nick the Greek. Now Saturn was climbing into the sky. Lowering
his eyes from the gable, Matthew began ascending the wide marble steps.
The Doric columns seemed to rise higher and higher above him. The feeling of insignificance that had
afflicted him ever since he had set forth from the Hostel increased. He felt very small indeed when at last
he stepped through the doorway that appeared transiently in the black curtain of the force-field, and into
the enormous room beyond, and he wished that he had not come.
The room occupied the entire front half of the rectangular building.
Strictly speaking, it was more of a great hall than a room. On three sides of it, the magnificent Doric
columns rose up to the architrave; on the fourth side тАФ the side opposite the entrance тАФ a grand
Pentelic staircase climbed majestically to a railed mezzanine, beyond which dozens of ornate doorways
could be seen; The appointments were made of Pentelic marble, too тАФ benches, tables, chairs. And in
the center of the room a Pentelic marble fountain sent up an exquisite nosegay of twinkling water. High
above the fountain, seemingly suspended in midair, an incongruous chandelier, wrought in the shape of a
barred-spiral nebula, shed soft but penetrating radiance. The inter-columnar force-field that so effectively
concealed the building's interior from the eyes of the outsider existed here only as a diaphanous mist.
Through the mist, the garish bonfire of the mile-away city of Saturnia showed like gentle candlelight.