"Zelazny, Roger - Angel, Dark Angel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

Angel, Dark Angel
Roger Zelanzy
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Yet another variation on the way stories come into beingЕ Back when Fred Pohl was editing Galaxy, Worlds of Tomorrow and Worlds of If magazines he used to encourage artists by buying pieces theyТd painted to use as covers. These days, the contents of a magazine tend to come first, the cover subsequently commissioned to illustrate something within. But I canТt complain about the old order of things, which paid a number of bills. Fred would send a reproduction of such a cover to a writer and request a story to go behind it. One of my better short storiesЧУThe Man Who Loved the FaioliФЧcame about in such a fashion. (Also, my absolute worst, but never mindЕ)

This one showed an extended, black-gloved hand, a strange little creature with a near-human face standing on the palm. All rightЕ

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He entered the kiosk and escalated down to the deck that stood beside the rumbling strip. He was fifty-five years of age and he bore a briefcase in his right hand.

As he crossed toward the conveyor belt, a dozen heads turned in his direction because of the flash of light that occurred immediately before him.

For one bright instant, a dark figure stood in his path.

Then there came the crack of imploding air, as the figure vanished and the man fell to the deck.

Later that day, the death record read, УNatural causes.Ф

Which was true. Quite, quite true.

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It slithered along the moist tunnel, heading toward the river.

It knew that its life had ended the moment that the blaze occurred; and the facets of its eyes held sixty-four images of the tall, leather-masked figure, garbed all in black, with its hard, dark hand upraised.

The hand extended toward it, offering that which it could not refuse.

The gift was thunder and pain, and the medical record prepared later that day said, УNatural causes.Ф

Putting down his champagne glass, he unfastened her negligee and pushed it back over her shoulders. His hands molded her, described her sex, drew her down onto the bed. She sighed as he raised himself onto an elbow and touched her lips.

She felt him stiffen, in the glare that came from the corner of the suite. She screamed within the thunderclap that followed, having glimpsed the Angel of Death for a single, dark moment as she felt her lover stop his loving, forever.

This, too, was the result of natural causes.

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The man called Stain was in his greenhouse, where he had spent some part of almost every day for the past two years, plucking dead leaves and taking cuttings.

He was slightly under six feet in height, and his eyes were iodine dark within his sharp-cornered, sunbaked face beneath black hair salted lightly at the temples.

His left shoulder brushed against an earthenware pot on the shelf at his back, and he felt its movement and departure.

Turning, he caught it at waist level and replaced it on the shelf.

He began repotting a geranium, and then the instrument strapped to his left wrist buzzed and he pressed a button on its side and said, УYes?Ф