"Robert F. Young - The First Sweet Sleep of Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

Presently Millicent saw the men. They walked as though dreaming, tall and lithe, their bodies flowing
in the unreasonable night. At first she could not believe their faces, for their faces were beautiful.
And then she saw Dr. Hanley, and his face was beautiful, too. BeautifulтАФand frightening.
She shrank back into the shadow of the tent and watched him pass. He walked the way the natives
walked, as though he did not know he walked at all. The first soft mist of spring had touched the
grayness of his eyes. He passed her very close, but he did not see her, and then he descended the
southern slope of the hill. The wind fluttered the collar of his khaki jacket and ruffled his light brown hair.
The wind. The scented north windтАФ
Suddenly Millicent understood the behavior pattern of the culture. In one lucid second the whole
array of paradoxes dissolved, into a crystal clear sequence of cause and effect ...
During the last lap of the southward flight, the launch had passed over the Flower Islands and
everyone had been fascinated by the polychromatic patterns that floated like riotous nosegays on the face
of the Sapphire Sea. No one had given a thought to the musky fragrance that drifted subtly through the
open vents.
The phrase "Flower Islands" leaped to everyone's lips at once, and later the place-name was entered
on Dr. Hanley's Fomalhaut 4 map. In addition to the unanimous voicing of the place name, several other
incidents occurred in quick succession.
Dr. Vestor put his arm around Gloria Mitchell's shoulders, and leaned over and kissed her on the
mouth. Instead of resisting, Gloria Mitchell responded passionately.

Dr. Hanley said: "I didn't laugh, Milli. I wasn't one of the ones who laughed."
Millicent answered: "I know. But all the others laughed and that's what destroyed it."
"But I didn't laugh, Milli. I tried to tell you so many times, but you'd never listen. You'd always
withdraw into yourself and I'd find myself talking to a shell of a woman. That's why I stopped tryingтАФ"
"The others laughed and that was the end of it. Can't you understand that? Can't you see why it had
to be the end?"
"No, I'll never understand ..."
His voice trailed away and the softness that had come into his eyes disappeared. Abruptly Millicent
blushed and wondered why she hadn't blushed before. She noticed then that Dr. Vestor's arm was no
longer around Gloria Mitchell's shoulders, that he was sitting stiffly in the pilot's seat, his neck the color of
a tropical sunset. The Flower Islands were far behind, and the automatic controls were guiding the launch
toward the elongated land mass that showed in the distance.
They had landed a short time later and had gone about establishing the subsidiary camp as though
nothing unusual had occurred. The incident had never been mentioned, as though by tacit agreement, and
Millicent had carefully kept it from trespassing upon her thoughts. Until nowтАФ
The Flower Islands were uninhabited. For the first time she realized why they were uninhabited.
No race of people could possibly adapt itself to such a milieu.
But a race of people could adapt itself to the land mass to the south тАФif the prevailing wind was from
the south. If it were a normal race, its sexual cycle would be influenced, though not necessarily
determined, by the number of times the wind shifted to the north.
An extremely matriarchal race, however, would react somewhat differentlyтАФas in the present
instance. When the wind was from the south, sex was avoided by the men because marriage was
synonymous with social death. But when the wind shifted to the north, the aphrodisiacal fragrance which
it carried southward from the Flower Islands was enough to overcome their fear of social death and send
them off in pursuit of the nubile women who, already affected, had wandered into the hills, crooning tribal
love songs to lure prospective suitors.
From the evidence of the age groups, it was clear that the wind changed direction for a brief period
once every Fomalhaut 4 year. But the limited longevity of the men indicated that another factor was
involved. That factor had to be topography.
Fear of social death, Millicent realized, was not enough in itself to cause a man to kill himself. But