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

УWhat do you mean СperhapsТ? Perhaps I misunderstand you.Ф

УIt would seem that you do. Sensibility is a form of esthetic consciousness cultivated by intelligence. This is lacking today and I proposed a method whereby it might be preserved. The fruits of my work were then threatened.Ф

УAnd what may these be?Ф

==========

She tilted her head slightly, studied his face, then, УCome with me, and I will show you,Ф she said, and she rose and led him into her library. As he followed her, he removed from an inner pocket his black gauntlets and drew them onto his hands. Then he jammed his hands into his side pockets to cover them and entered the room at her back.

УSimule,Ф she called out, and the tiny creature that sat before a reading machine upon her desk leapt into her extended hand, ran up her right arm and sat upon her shoulder.

УWhat is it?Ф he questioned.

УThe answer,Ф she said. УPure, mechanistic intelligence can be countered by an infinitely mobile and easily concealed organic preserver of sensibility. This is Simule. He and others like him came to life in my laboratory.Ф

УOthers?Ф

УThere are many, upon many worlds already. They share a mass mind. They learn constantly. They have no personal ambition. They wish only to learn and to instruct any who wish to learn from them. They do not fear the death of their bodies, for they continue to exist thereafter as a part of the mind they all share. TheyЧor itЧareЧor isЧlacking in any other personal passion. The Simule could never represent a threat to the human races. I know this, for I am their mother. Take Simule into your hand, consider him, ask him anything. Simule, this is Stain; Stain, this is Simule.Ф

Stain extended his right hand, and the Simule leaped into it. Stain studied the tiny, six-legged creature, with its disquietingly near-human face. Near. Yet not quite. It was unmarked by the physical conversions of those abstract passion-producers men call good and evil, which show in some form upon every human countenance. Its ears were large, doubtless for purposes of eavesdropping, and its two antennae quivered upon its hairless head and it raised a frail limb as if to shake hands. An eternal smile played upon its lips, and Stain smiled back. УHello,Ф he said, and the Simule replied in a soft, but surprisingly rich voice, УThe pleasure is mine, sir.Ф

Stain said, УWhat is so rare as a day in June?Ф and the Simule replied, УWhy, the lady Galatea, of course, to whom I now return,Ф and leaped and was upon her suddenly extended palm.

She clutched the Simule to her breast and said, УThose gauntletsЧ!Ф

УI put them on because I did not know what sort of creature the Simule might be. I feared it might bite. Please give him back that I might question him furtherЧФ

УYou fool!Ф she said. УPoint your hands in another direction, unless you wish to die! Do you not know who I am!Ф Then Stain knew. УI did not knowЕФ he said.

==========

In Shadowhall in Morgenguard the Angel of Death stands within ten thousand transport cubicles. Morgenguard, who controls the destinies of all civilized worlds, briefs his agents for anything from ten seconds to a minute and a halfЧand then, with a clap of thunder, dispatches them. A second laterЧgenerallyЧthere is a flash of light and a brief report, which is the word УDone,Ф and there then follows another briefing and another mission.

The Angel of Death is, at any given moment, any one of ten thousand anonymous individuals whose bodies bear the mark of Morgenguard, after this fashion:

Selected before birth because of a genetic heritage that includes heightened perception and rapid reflexes, certain individuals of the homo sapiens variety are given a deadly powerful education under force-fed conditions. This compensates for its brevity. At age fourteen, they may or may not accept employment in the service of Morgenguard, the city-sized machine created by the mutual efforts of all civilized peoples over a period of fifteen years and empowered to manage their worlds for them. Should any decline, these individuals generally proceed to excel in their chosen professions. Should they accept, a two-year period of specialized training follows. At the end of this time, their bodies have built into them an arsenal of weapons and numerous protective devices and their reflexes have been surgically and chemically stimulated to a point of thoughtlike rapidity.

They work an eight-hour day, five days a week, with two daily coffee breaks and an hour for lunch. They receive two vacations a year and they work for fourteen years and are retired on full salary at age thirty, when their reflexes begin to slow. At any given moment, there are always at least ten thousand on duty.

On any given workday, they stand in the transport cubicles in Shadowhall in Morgenguard, receive instructions, are transported to the worlds and into the presence of the individuals who have become superfluous, dispatch these individuals and depart.

He is the Angel of Death. Life lasts long, save for him; populations would rise up like tidal waves and inundate worlds, save for him; criminals would require trials and sentencing, save for him; and of course history might reflect unnecessary twistings and turnings, save for the Angel of Death.

One dark form might walk the streets of a city and leave that city empty of life at its back. Coming in lightning and departing in thunder, no world is foreign, no face unfamiliar, and the wearer of the black gauntlets is legend, folklore and myth; for, to a hundred billion people, he is but one being with a single personality.

All of which is true. Quite, quite true.

And the Dark Angel cannot die.