"Robert F. Young - Tents of Kedar" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

"In this respect, Sefira's task was somewhat difficult. Your mother would not do: she simply wasn't
well enough. Your sister had to be ruled out because of the demands made upon her by her husband. So
Sefira had to employ the body of an outsider. She was forced, finally, to make use of a prostitude named
тАФ"
тАЬNo!" Eastcliff shouted, half rising from his chair.
 The blue-cowled man shrugged. "Very well, I will not mention your ex-wife's name. It isn't relevant in
any case. What is relevant is that preincarnation can be sustained for only a limited length of time. Such
'trances,' as our people insist upon calling them, are extremely exhausting. Objectively, they endure for
only several hours, but subjectively the chirurgeon experiences the same time interval as that of the
person she inhabits. So you see, even if the chirurgeons' code had permitted Sefira to remain in your
wife's body, she couldn't have done so. She had to return to the present.
"We are not gods, and we can't change the past. What was, was. What is, is. Nevertheless, before a
chirurgeon is permitted to preincarnate herself in a person's body, we run a check on the
post-preincarnation history of that person. Thus we knew тАФ know тАФthat after Sefira's departure from
your wife's body, your wife obtained an annulment and left the planet. This is regrettable, but тАФ"
Eastcliff was on his feet, gripping the edges of the desk. "You know nothing!" he screamed. "Nothing
but lies!"
"We know what the records tell us," the blue-cowled man continued unperturbedly. "If something
befell your wife that they don't tell, we can hardly be held responsible. We could not be in any case,
because whatever happened had already happened. As I said, we are not gods. We are healers. Nothing
more, nothing less. Sefira erred in permitting her host to marry you. But, you see, she couldn't have done
otherwise because in one sense her host had already married you. Her real error тАФ if it can be called
that was in falling in love with you, something she didn't foresee. All she meant to do, as your secretary
and later as your wife, was to administer the vaccine series and save your life."
'Then why didn't she tell me!" Eastcliff cried.
"Why didn't she indeed! If she had said to you, 'Beneath this ethnically beautiful exterior so dear to
your ethnocentric heart lies the soul of a bush-black witch doctor come to cure you of a disease you have
yet to contract,' what would your reaction have been?"
Eastcliff flung his chair across the room. "Damn your sanctimonious clinic! Damn your sanctimonious
soul!" He threw money on the desk, handfuls of it, and walked out.

On the river, moving downstream in the lingering morning coolness, beneath the green overhanging
fronds, Eastcliff felt his anguish fade to a faint but throbbing pain. He opened Sefira's letter.

Now all has been made clear to you. Except why I met you on the river. I wanted to see you
one more time as a woman; I could not help myself. For this, I must be forgiven, for I was, for an
entire month, your wife. I am the part of her that loved you, but not the part you loved.
There is a pier at the tip of the promontory near where you took me on board. A path leads up
from it through the bush to my house. If you would care to stop by on your way home, I will have
hot coffee waiting for you on the stove.
тАФSefira

The path was narrow, wound senselessly among the trees, through bramblevines laden with red, red
berries. Eastcliff smelled forest flowers, the morning dampness of the underbrush. He smelled smoke, and
presently he glimpsed the house through the low-hanging foliage of the trees. It was a small house, hardly
more than a hut. He had seen a thousand such. There would be a wood stove, a table and a chair.
Perhaps two chairs. The floor would be dirt. He halted behind the final fringe of trees.
He pictured her sitting by the window in her cheap calico half-skirt and halter. Waiting. He saw the
pot of coffee steaming on the stove. He realized that his hands were trembling, and he thrust them into his
coat pockets to still them.