"David Zindell - Neverness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zindell David)

"Journeymen die," I said.

Journeymen Die-it was a saying we had, a warning cut into the marble
archway above the entrance to Resa that is meant to terrorize young
journeymen into leaving the Order before the manifold claimed them; it
is a saying that is true.

To die among the stars," I quoted the Tycho, "'is the most glorious
death."

"Nonsense!" Bardo shouted as he slapped the arm of the chair. He belched
and said, "Twelve years I've known you, and you're still talking
nonsense."

"You can't live forever," I said. "I can damn try."

"It would be hell,"



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I said. "Day after day, thinking the same thoughts, the same dull stars.

The same faces of friends doing and talking about the same things, the
relentless apathy, trapped within our same brains, this negative
eternity of our confused and painful lives."

He shook his head back and forth so violently that drops of sweat flew
off his forehead. "A different woman each night," he countered. "Or
three very different women each night. A boy or an alien courtesan if
things got too boring. Thirty thousand planets of the Civilized Worlds,
and I've seen only fifty of them. Ah, I've heard the talk of our Lord
Pilot and his quest. For the secret of life! Do you want to know the
secret of life? Bardo will tell you the secret of life: it's not the
amount of time we have, despite what I've just said. No, it's not
quantity and it's not even quality. It's variety."

As I usually did, I had let him blather, and he had blathered his way
into a trap. "The variety of the bars in the Farsider's Quarter," I
said, "is nearly infinite. Are you coming with me?"

"Damn you, Mallory!

Of course I am!"

I put on my racing gloves and clipped in the blades of my skates. I
walked towards the heavy mahogany door of our room. The long racing
blades left dents in the alien-woven Fravashi carpet. Bardo bellowed as