[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
latter, when'there was so much distance between and so many differences among
the people of the Holy Empire and their worlds, but it was far more consistent
than not. One needed only to make allowances for local differences.
The credo was, in fact, comforting to those who lived under it; a unity of
culture that included the exact same set of beliefs,
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%...arathon%201%20-%20The%20Demons%
20at%20Ra.txt (104 of 236) [1/19/03 4:36:49 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20The%20Quintara%20
Marathon%201%20-%20The%20Demons%20at%20Ra.txt language, and attitudes no
matter how far from home you strayed.
This worid was Terran, like himself; however, other worlds he went to within
the Empire were the homes of people with scales, people with tentacles, people
who looked like lizards, people who looked like rocks, and people who looked
like noth-
ing else had ever looked. To the Mizlaplan, the evolutionary origin of one's
species and its biology was irrelevant. Many di-
verse races, yet One People. That was pretty impressive.
"How far is it to the retreat?" he called to the driver after a while.
"Fairiy far, sir. Another thirty or forty minutes at least."
He felt no guilt at taking the cabbie so far out of town; it was the man's
Page 89
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
function to do this, just as his function was to be the captain of the Faith
of Gorusu, a position he had inherited at least partly on merit and after
years of hard work and service.
He had been selected for his career after the Examinations at age twelve, and
had been sent off to the Space Academy on his thirteenth birthday. After ten
years of intensive study and indoc-
trination in a rigid, monastic setting, with few trips home to visit relatives
and no other breaks, he'd been commissioned and assigned as junior on a
freight scow going from nowhere to noplace in particular. He hadn't gone home
at all after that; his trips home had become less and less frequent with each
year away, anyway. That world was a primitive one of nomadic herds-
men in a cold, harsh climate; his world was now computers and high technology,
and he and his people no longer had much of anything in common except their
genes.
Over the years, too, his competence and abilities had allowed him far too much
latitude; they called ones like him bilge rats, from some ancient scourge no
longer understood in its historical context. He had become jaded, lax in his
personal appearance
134 fack L Chalker and habits, a real slob. He knew it was mostly rebellion at
all those years of straight-laced conformity, but he didn't care. He'd been to
a thousand worlds, seen much of what there was to see.
He'd even been over to the heathen the Mycohl Empire and the
Exchange. The former was always a chilling experience; the lat-
ter totally unnerving with its accent on the accumulation of wealth, its
freewheeling no-morals societies and its totally ma-
terialistic and chaotic bent. About the only thing the Mycohlians and the
Mizlaplan had in common, culturally, was the inability to conceive of anybody
actually living in the domain of the Ex-
change rootless, foundationless, with nothing and no one but yourself to rely
on even in the midst of a city or town.
All three empires, of course, had other things in common. He could remember
well the first rime hey seen Terrans not unlike himself who were not of the
Mizlaplan, and how people of the same genetic stock could be more alien to one
another than those of other racial stock and other worlds.
Terrans were not, of course, the only races to overlap, but they seemed the
largest such group. Spacefaring races who'd broken free of their own worids
and spread out and established
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%...arathon%201%20-%20The%20Demons%
20at%20Ra.txt (105 of 236) [1/19/03 4:36:49 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20The%20Quintara%20
Marathon%201%20-%20The%20Demons%20at%20Ra.txt rather large realms and thought
themselves the lords of creation until, of course, they'd run into the
Mizlaplan, or the Mycohl, or the Exchange. Space geometry and bad luck had put
his own ancestors in the path of all three, with the result that the last
thing one could ever trust was form and race.
He'd been somewhat irritated when the orders for this mission had come in.
When a captain took on cargo it was an obligation, and having to dump it off
enroute and beg other ships to take it was something he hated doing, but you
didn't ignore these kinds of orders.
Discovering that most of the Arm was in retreat out here hadn't been helpful,
either, considering that the mission sounded ur-
gent. When the Holy Ones were in their retreats, they were cut off from all
things modern, which meant a buggy ride in the country and person-to-person
contact. This one smelled partic-
ularly unpleasant, too- He much preferred the standard mis-
sions, where they were checking out a newly discovered world and evaluating
its potential and finding its hidden dangers, or perhaps a fragmentary colony,
never absorbed into one of the three great empires, that had to be brought
Page 90
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
into the Mizlaplan fold before it fell into the hands of the heathen and was
cor-
rupted.
THE DEMONS AT RAINBOW BRIDGE 135
The cabbie finally couldn't resist some conversation.
"You work with the Holy Ones?" the driver asked, trying to imagine a fellow
who looked like that amongst saints.
"1 do, when they need me," he replied. "As to why they picked a character like
me, I couldn't say, if that's your thinking.
They say I give 'em perspective. They spend most of their times in the
spiritual worid or among the goodfolk, like yourself. I'm a jarring,
ever-present reminder to them of what people might become if they don't do
their jobs right."
The cabbie half turned, then thought better of it, although he really wanted
to get some indication of whether or not his pas-
senger was joking.
They came around a bend and suddenly the Holy Retreat was spread out below
them in a shallow, wide valley. The captain had never seen a Holy Retreat
before, and he was impressed by the manicured lawns, wooded areas, and
impressive facilities. It appeared they would come in by a large athletic
field and track that looked as good as any he'd seen; off to one side was a
large outdoor swimming pool, along with a number of smaller pools, which, from
the rising wisps of steam, suggested hot springs beneath. The place itself was
laid out with a large but rustic-
looking temple in the center, with dorms and support buildings constructed of
wood in a similar style. Had it not been a reli-
gious place, he wouldn't have minded spending a week or so there.
There weren't a lot of people around, but those who were seemed to be having
fun. It was comforting to see that the saints also had fun now and again, at
least to the limit of their own restrictions.
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%...arathon%201%20-%20The%20Demons%
20at%20Ra.txt (106 of 236) [1/19/03 4:36:49 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20The%20Quintara%20
Marathon%201%20-%20The%20Demons%20at%20Ra.txt
"Is there an angel in residence?" he asked the cabbie.
"Oh, yes, sir," came the response with obvious pride. "I, myself, pray to the
Venerated One who is here, dwelling within the main altar of that very temple
there."
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]