JК
The Stars My Destination ( Tiger! Tiger! ) :: Bester Alfred
Страница: 128 из 164»
«No. NANNIE! NAN-N-I-E!»
«Shut up, you little bastard!»
Foyle grabbed the seventy-year-old child and shook it. «This is going to be a brand new experience for you, Sigurd. The first time you've ever been walloped into anything. Understand?»
The ancient child read him and howled.
«Shut up! We're going on a trip to the Skoptsy Colony. If you behave yourself and do what you're told, I'll bring you back safe and give you a lolly or whatever the hell they bribe you with. If you don't behave, I'll beat the living daylights out of you.»
«No, you won't. . . . You won't. I'm Sigurd Magsman. I'm Sigurd the telepath. You wouldn't dare.»
«Sonny, I'm Gully Foyle, Solar Enemy Number One. I'm just a step away from the finish of a year-long hunt . . . I'm risking my neck because I need you to settle accounts with a son of a bitch who…Sonny, I'm Gully Foyle. There isn't anything I wouldn't dare.»
The telepath began broadcasting terror with such an uproar the alarms sounded all over Mars St. Michele. Foyle took a firm grip on the ancient child, accelerated and carried him out of the fortress. Then he jaunted.
URGENT. SIGURD MAGSMAN KIDNAPPED BY MAN
TENTATIVELY IDENTIFIED AS GULLIVER FOYLE, ALIAS
FOURMYLE OF CERES, SOLAR ENEMY NUMBER ONE.
DESTINATION TENTATIVELY FIXED. ALERT COMMANDO
BRIGADE. INFORM CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE. URGENT!
The ancient Skoptsy sect of White Russia, believing that sex was the root of all evil, practiced an atrocious self-castration to extirpate the root. The modern Skoptsys, believing that sensation was the root of all evil, practiced an even more barbaric custom. Having entered the Skoptsy Colony and paid a fortune for the privilege, the initiates submitted joyously to an operation that severed the sensory nervous system, and lived out their days without sight, sound, speech, smell, taste, or touch.
When they first entered the monastery, the initiates were shown elegant ivory cells in which it was intimated they would spend the remainder of their lives in rapt contemplation, lovingly tended. In actuality, the senseless creatures were packed in catacombs where they sat on rough stone slabs and were fed and exercised once a day. For twenty-three out of twenty-four hours they sat alone in the dark, untended, unguarded, unloved.
«The living dead,» Foyle muttered. He decelerated, put Sigurd Magsman down, and switched on the retinal light in his eyes, trying to pierce the wombgloom. It was midnight above ground. It was permanent midnight down in the catacombs.
«No. NANNIE! NAN-N-I-E!»
«Shut up, you little bastard!»
Foyle grabbed the seventy-year-old child and shook it. «This is going to be a brand new experience for you, Sigurd. The first time you've ever been walloped into anything. Understand?»
The ancient child read him and howled.
«Shut up! We're going on a trip to the Skoptsy Colony. If you behave yourself and do what you're told, I'll bring you back safe and give you a lolly or whatever the hell they bribe you with. If you don't behave, I'll beat the living daylights out of you.»
«No, you won't. . . . You won't. I'm Sigurd Magsman. I'm Sigurd the telepath. You wouldn't dare.»
«Sonny, I'm Gully Foyle, Solar Enemy Number One. I'm just a step away from the finish of a year-long hunt . . . I'm risking my neck because I need you to settle accounts with a son of a bitch who…Sonny, I'm Gully Foyle. There isn't anything I wouldn't dare.»
The telepath began broadcasting terror with such an uproar the alarms sounded all over Mars St. Michele. Foyle took a firm grip on the ancient child, accelerated and carried him out of the fortress. Then he jaunted.
URGENT. SIGURD MAGSMAN KIDNAPPED BY MAN
TENTATIVELY IDENTIFIED AS GULLIVER FOYLE, ALIAS
FOURMYLE OF CERES, SOLAR ENEMY NUMBER ONE.
DESTINATION TENTATIVELY FIXED. ALERT COMMANDO
BRIGADE. INFORM CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE. URGENT!
The ancient Skoptsy sect of White Russia, believing that sex was the root of all evil, practiced an atrocious self-castration to extirpate the root. The modern Skoptsys, believing that sensation was the root of all evil, practiced an even more barbaric custom. Having entered the Skoptsy Colony and paid a fortune for the privilege, the initiates submitted joyously to an operation that severed the sensory nervous system, and lived out their days without sight, sound, speech, smell, taste, or touch.
When they first entered the monastery, the initiates were shown elegant ivory cells in which it was intimated they would spend the remainder of their lives in rapt contemplation, lovingly tended. In actuality, the senseless creatures were packed in catacombs where they sat on rough stone slabs and were fed and exercised once a day. For twenty-three out of twenty-four hours they sat alone in the dark, untended, unguarded, unloved.
«The living dead,» Foyle muttered. He decelerated, put Sigurd Magsman down, and switched on the retinal light in his eyes, trying to pierce the wombgloom. It was midnight above ground. It was permanent midnight down in the catacombs.