"Robert F. Young - The Quality of Mercy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

Come here."
Binns came forward diffidently, leaned over the ancient volume. "I can't make any of the characters
out, sir," he said. "The light's too dim."
The captain felt in his pockets, and produced a torch. He flicked it on. He heard Binns gasp. "What's
the matter?" he asked.
"WhyтАФwhy it's incredible, sir! I can't believe it!"
"What's incredible? What can't you believe?"
"The book, sir. This Martian book. It's written in Aramaic."
The silence that had reigned for two thousand years reigned again. Binns' face was white in the
unsteady light of the captain's torch and Tanner had become an ungainly statue. The immobile figures in
the concave murals gazed mutely out at the scene, unaware that for the first time in millennia it had
changed.
And then the silence rolled back again, grudgingly making room fat the captain's voice: "Read it,
Binns."
"But, sir, do you think we ought to? I mean, isn't it kind of sacrilegious even to be here?"
"I think it's appropriate for us to be here. Churches are built to help men die. Even Martian
churches."
The statue of Tanner quivered, came to life. "Sir, I don't thinkтАФ"
"I think you're both afraid," the captain said. "I think you're both afraid that we'll discover something
here that will make it harder for us to die." He looked up at the silent figure on the cross, at the haggard
face and the pain-filled eyes. "There's nothing here to be afraid of," he went on softly. "Absolutely nothing
....Read it, Binns."
"Yes, sir." Binns bent over the metallic sheets.

"The Scripture of Saint Orlinne:
"On the sixty-third day we commenced orbital descent and established Duide's hypothesis that
Earth skies are blue. The land rose up, deeply green, and vast seas, green too, but of a paler
green than the land. We remained in the upper atmosphere until the scanners had located the
center of the civilized sector, then we descended to within tele-view distance of the cities.
The main city, situated on a mountainous peninsula that jutted into a small sea, told us all we
needed to know concerning the ruling race. The architecture betrayed the builders, as it invariably
does. It was ponderous in this instance, and heavily ostentatious, with incongruous touches here
and there of simple beauty which in turn betrayed the influence of another race, greater, though
obviously less proficient in the art of war, than the race in power.
"I consulted with M'naith and Preith as to the advisability of conducting our pre-invasion
study on the peninsula. We concurred unanimously that such a procedure would involve useless
risk, and that the information we required could be garnered in any of the nearby occupied
countries. We chose an extremely primitive one at the eastern end of the elongated sea and waited
for the pre-dawn belt to cross it. When this transpired we landed cautiously within convenient
distance of a small white city.
"We concealed our ship in a deep ravine and at dawn we set out for the city. It was a land of
rocky hillsides. The soil was barren, as barren almost as the soil of our native planet. Primitive
stone dwellings were scattered among the hills, and on the road primitive people rode or led
fantastic double
humped beasts of burden. We attracted little attention. Our simple robes and sandals
approximated the prevailing dress of the natives, and though most of the men wore beards, there
were a few who did notтАФenough to save our own smooth faces from being conspicuous.
"Physically, of course, there was very little difference between us and the Earthmen. As
Therin has pointed out in his third law of intelligence: 'Given an ecology fundamentally the same,
there can be no racial variation in the physical structure of intelligent beings, regardless of the