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The Lovers :: Фармер Филип Хосе
Страница: 116 из 127'Here? How'd they find out?'
'I imagine they have means about which they failed to inform you. Don't be afraid.'
Hal stood motionless. The cigarette, unnoticed, burned until it seared his fingers. He dropped it and crushed it beneath his sole.
Boot heels clicked in the corridor.
Three men entered. One was a tall and gaunt ghost – Macneff, the Archurielite. The others were short and broad-shouldered and clad in black. Their meaty hands, though empty, were hooked, ready to dart into their pockets. Their heavy-lidded eyes stabbed at Fobo and then at Hal.
Macneff strode up to the joat. His pale blue eyes glared; his lipless mouth was drawn back in a skull's smile.
'You unspeakable degenerate!' he shouted.
His arm flashed, and the whip, jerked out of his belt, cracked. Thin red marks appeared on Yarrow's white face and began oozing blood.
'You will be taken back to Earth in chains and there exhibited as an example of the worst pervert, traitor, and – and–!'
He drooled, unable to find words.
'You – who have passed the Elohimeter, who are supposed to be so pure – you have lusted after and lain with an insect!'
'What!'
'Yes. With a thing that is even lower than a beast of the field! What even Moses did not think of when he forbade union between man and beast, what even the Forerunner could not have guessed when he affirmed the law and set the utmost penalty for it – you have done! You, Hal Yarrow, the pure, the Lamedh-wearer!'
Fobo rose and said in a deep voice, 'Might I suggest and stress that you are not quite right in your zoological classification? It is not the class of Insecta but the class of the Chordata pseudarthropoda, or words to that effect.'
Hal said, 'What?' He could not think.
The wog growleld, 'Shut up. Let me talk.'
He swung to face Macneff. 'You know about her?'
'You are shib that I know her! Yarrow thought he was getting away with something. But, no matter how clever these unrealists are, they're always tripped up. In this case, it was his asking Turnboy about those Frenchmen that fled Earth. Turnboy, who is very zealous in his attitude toward the Sturch, reported the conversation. It lay among my papers for quite a while. When I came across it, I turned it over to the psychologists. They told me that the joat's question was a deviation from the pattern expected of him; a thing totally irrelevent unless it was connected to something we didn't know about him.
'I imagine they have means about which they failed to inform you. Don't be afraid.'
Hal stood motionless. The cigarette, unnoticed, burned until it seared his fingers. He dropped it and crushed it beneath his sole.
Boot heels clicked in the corridor.
Three men entered. One was a tall and gaunt ghost – Macneff, the Archurielite. The others were short and broad-shouldered and clad in black. Their meaty hands, though empty, were hooked, ready to dart into their pockets. Their heavy-lidded eyes stabbed at Fobo and then at Hal.
Macneff strode up to the joat. His pale blue eyes glared; his lipless mouth was drawn back in a skull's smile.
'You unspeakable degenerate!' he shouted.
His arm flashed, and the whip, jerked out of his belt, cracked. Thin red marks appeared on Yarrow's white face and began oozing blood.
'You will be taken back to Earth in chains and there exhibited as an example of the worst pervert, traitor, and – and–!'
He drooled, unable to find words.
'You – who have passed the Elohimeter, who are supposed to be so pure – you have lusted after and lain with an insect!'
'What!'
'Yes. With a thing that is even lower than a beast of the field! What even Moses did not think of when he forbade union between man and beast, what even the Forerunner could not have guessed when he affirmed the law and set the utmost penalty for it – you have done! You, Hal Yarrow, the pure, the Lamedh-wearer!'
Fobo rose and said in a deep voice, 'Might I suggest and stress that you are not quite right in your zoological classification? It is not the class of Insecta but the class of the Chordata pseudarthropoda, or words to that effect.'
Hal said, 'What?' He could not think.
The wog growleld, 'Shut up. Let me talk.'
He swung to face Macneff. 'You know about her?'
'You are shib that I know her! Yarrow thought he was getting away with something. But, no matter how clever these unrealists are, they're always tripped up. In this case, it was his asking Turnboy about those Frenchmen that fled Earth. Turnboy, who is very zealous in his attitude toward the Sturch, reported the conversation. It lay among my papers for quite a while. When I came across it, I turned it over to the psychologists. They told me that the joat's question was a deviation from the pattern expected of him; a thing totally irrelevent unless it was connected to something we didn't know about him.