"Zelazny, Roger - Creatures Of Light And Darkness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

УSuppose I had never awakened you?Ф
УThat, I suppose, would be death.Ф
УDeath? If I did not choose to exercise my power to awaken you? Even though the power was ever present, and СyouТ potential and available for that same ever?Ф
УIf this thing were not done, if I remained forever only potential, then this would be death.Ф
УA moment ago you said that sleep and death were two different things. Is it that the period of time involved makes a difference?Ф
УNo,Ф says Wakim, Уit is a matter of existence. After sleep there comes wakefulness, and the life is still present. When I exist, I know it. When I do not, I know nothing.Ф
УLife, then, is nothing?Ф
УNo.Ф
УLife, then, is existing? Like these dead?Ф
УNo,Ф says Wakim. УIt is knowing you exist, at least some of the time.Ф
УOf what is this a process?Ф
У СIТ Ф says Wakim.
УAnd what is СIТ? Who are you?Ф
УI am Wakim.Ф
УI only named you a short while ago! What were you before that?Ф
УNot Wakim.Ф
УDead?Ф
УNo! Alive!Ф cries Wakim.
УDo not raise you voice within my halls,Ф says Anubis. УYou do not know what you are or who you are, you do not know the difference between existing and not existing, yet you presume to argue with me concerning life and death! Now I shall not ask you, I shall tell you. I shall tell you of life and of death.Ф
УThere is too much life and there is not enough life,Ф he begins, Уand the same goes for death. Now I shall throw away paradoxes.Ф
УThe House of Life lies so far from here that a ray of light which left it on the day you entered this domain would not yet have traveled a significant fraction of the distance which separates us. Between us lie the Middle Worlds. They move within the Life-Death tides that flow between my House and the House of Osiris. When I say СflowТ I do not mean that they move like that pitiful ray of light, crawling. Rather, they move like waves on the ocean which has but two shores. We may raise waves anywhere we wish without disrupting the entire sea. What are these waves, and what do they do?Ф
УSome worlds have too much life,Ф he says. УLife-crawling, pullulating, fecundating, smothering itselfЧ worlds too clement, too full of the sciences which keep men aliveЧworlds which would drown themselves in their own semen, worlds which would pack all of their lands with crowds of big-bellied womenЧand so go down to death beneath the weight of their own fruitfulness. Then there are worlds which are bleak and barren and bitter, worlds which grind life like grain. Even with body modifications and with world-change machines, there are only a few hundred worlds which may be inhabited by the six intelligent races. Life is needed badly in the worst of these. It can be a deadly blessing on the best. When I say that life is needed or not needed in certain places, I am of course also saying that death is needed or not needed. I am not speaking of two different things, but of the same thing. Osiris and I are bookkeepers. We credit and we debit. We raise waves, or we cause waves to sink back again into the ocean. Can life be counted upon to limit itself? No. It is the mindless striving of two to become infinity. Can death be counted upon to limit itself? Never. It is the equally mindless effort of zero to encompass infinity.Ф
УBut there must be life control and death control,Ф he says, Уelse the fruitful worlds would rise and fall, rise and fall, cycling between empire and anarchy, then down to final disruption. The bleak worlds would be encompassed by zero. Life cannot contain itself within the bounds statistics have laid down for its guidance. Therefore, it must be contained, and it is. Osiris and I hold the Middle Worlds. They lie within our field of control, and we turn them on and we turn them off as we would. Do you see now, Wakim? Do you begin to understand?Ф
УYou limit life? You cause death?Ф
УWe can lay sterility on any or all of the six races on any world we choose, for as long a period of time as is necessary. This can be done on an absolute or a fractional basis. We may also manipulate life spans, decimate populations.Ф
УHow?Ф
УFire. Famine. Plague. War.Ф
УWhat of the sterile worlds, the dry worlds? What of those?Ф
УMultiple births can be insured, and we do not tamper with life spans. The newly dead are sent to the House of life, not here. There they are repaired, or their parts used in the construction of new individuals, who may or may not host a human mentality.Ф
УAnd of the other dead?Ф
УThe House of the Dead is the graveyard of the six races. There are no lawful cemeteries in the Middle Worlds. There have been times when the House of Life has called upon us for hosts and for parts. There have been other occasions when they have shipped us their excess.Ф
УIt is difficult to understand. It seems brutal, it seems harshЕФ
УIt is life and it is death. It is the greatest blessing and the greatest curse in the universe. You do not have to understand it, Wakim. Your comprehension or your lack of it, your approval or your disapproval, will in no way alter its operation.Ф
УAnd whence come you, AnubisЧand OsirisЧthat you control it?Ф
УThere are some things that are not for you to know.Ф
УAnd how do the Middle Worlds accept your control?Ф
УThey live with it, and they die with it. It is above their objections, for it is necessary for their continued existence. It is become a natural law, and it is utterly impartial, applying with equal force to all who come beneath it.Ф
УThere are some who do not?Ф
УYou shall learn more of this when I am ready to tell you, which is not now. I have made you a machine Wakim. Now I shall make you a man. Who is to say how you started, where you started? Were I to wipe out your memories up to this moment and then re-embody you, you would recollect that you had begun as metal.Ф
УWill you do this thing?Ф
УNo. I want you equipped with the memories which you now possess, when and if I assign you to your new duties.Ф
Then Anubis raises his hands and strikes them together.
A machine removes Wakim from the shelf and switches off his senses as it lowers him. The music pulses and falls about the dancers, the two hundred torches blaze upon the pillars like immortal thoughts, Anubis stares at a blackened place upon the floor of the great Hall, and overhead the canopy of smoke moves to its own rhythms.
Wakim opens his eyes and looks upon grayness. He lies on his back, staring upward. The tiles are cold beneath him, and there is a flickering of light off to his right. Suddenly, he clenches his left hand, feels for his thumb, finds it, sighs.
УYes,Ф says Anubis.
He sits up before the throne, looks down upon himself, looks up at Anubis.
УYou have been baptized, you have been born again into the flesh.Ф
УThank you.Ф
УNo trouble. Plenty of raw materials around here. Stand up! Do you remember your lessons?Ф
Wakim stands.