[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
will. I recognized their essential goodness and I acknowledged that
I did not understand all the answers to my questions. I failed to
comprehend why they had refused to treat Delia my Delia! Delia
of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains how many nights I
stood by the quarterdeck rail and stared up at the stars and ever and
ever my eyes sought that red star that was Antares, and there, I
knew, lay all of hope or happiness I wanted in all the universe.
I knew what had happened to me. I had been flung out of
Paradise.
Paradise. I had found my heaven and had been debarred from
entering.
After my life of hardship and struggle Aphrasöe was Paradise.
Now that I have lived so long and have visited Earth many
times, always, in some strange way it seems, during times of stress
or crisis, I can speak more calmly of my feelings then. So that you
may better understand the kind of man I am now, speaking into
your little recording apparatus, I should say that on Earth I have
amassed a considerable fortune over the years in the normal course
of business investment. Had I possessed a hundred times that sum
in those days when I once more walked the quarterdeck and
plunged into the battlesmoke on Earth I would have given it all,
over and over, to be returned once more to Kregen of Antares.
When Lloyd s Patriotic Fund voted me a fifty pound sword of
honor I grasped the gaudy thing with its gilt and its seed pearls and
I longed to feel once again the firm grip of a Savanti sword in my
fist.
I do not believe it possible for anyone of Earth to imagine my
state of mind as I thought of the crimson and emerald suns of
Kregen, of the seven moons glowing in the night sky against those
constellations so alien to Earth and yet so familiar to me. The
tortured regrets impelled me to a strange step, for I obtained a
scorpion and kept the thing in a cage. I would stare at its ugliness
for many minutes on end, and hope that some familiar drowsiness
would overtake me. The thing was cursed at by the men when we
had to clear for action, and as bulkheads and cabin partitions were
removed and struck down, I would have my pet scorpion sent
down with the rest.
The Peninsular War opened and I was appointed first
lieutenant aboard Roscommon, a leaky old tub of a seventy-four
whose captain was one of the famous mad captains of the Navy
List. Clearly, before me lay a career as a lieutenant until my hairs
were gray and I was at last discarded on half pay to rot on the
beach. Except that my hair would not turn gray for a thousand
years.
We carried out a number of interesting operations, interesting
only in that they provided a strong anodyne for the ache in my soul.
We took a French eighty gun ship and were thereby cheered. I
heard the officers remarking on the astounding ferocity of my
conduct during the boarding. I did not care. After the battle,
drained of emotion, I stood on the quarterdeck, gripping the rail,
and as always my eyes lifted to the heavens. Alpha Scorpii blazed
its mocking ruby fires into my eyes.
Was that a hint of blueness limning Antares? Was that a blue
shape leering down on me? The shape of a scorpion?
I reached up my arms.
I heard a cry from the quartermaster, and the midshipman of
the watch yelled to the master s mate. I ignored them. The blueness
grew. It was. It was!
I reached out and felt that blueness expand and take my
consciousness into itself and I shouted, loudly and exultantly:
Kregen! And: Delia Delia of Delphond, my Delia of the Blue
Mountains! I return, I return!
I opened my eyes on a sandy beach with the sound of great
waves.
Sick despair clogged my mind. Standing up, I looked around
upon a vast heaving sea, a sandy beach, a line of bushes inland and
beyond that a prairie vast and wide, extending to the farthest
horizon.
The gravity the sun the suns! the feel of the air yes.
Yes, this was the world of Kregen beneath Antares. But but
where was the city? Where the River Aph? Where was Aphrasöe,
the City of the Savanti, the Swinging City?
My eyes adjusted quickly to the warm pink sunshine; but I
could not see what I wanted to see. I hammered a fist into the
sand. Where could I be on the surface of an unknown world? Was I
in Loh, that continent of mysteries and veils and hidden walled
gardens? Or in Gah, that pathetic semblance of a man s sick
dreams where women were chained to bedposts? There were
Havilfar and Turismond, continents of which I knew nothing and
there were the other continents and the nine islands and all the seas
between.
How I cursed my inadequate knowledge of Kregen!
A shadow fleeted between me and that great bloated red sun.
I saw a scarlet feathered bird, with golden feathers about its neck
and head, its black legs extended with wicked claws wide, its broad
wings stiff and stately as it wheeled in hunting circles above me. I
stood up and shook my fist at the Gdoinye. It uttered a harsh
croak. After a time of surveillance it began to wheel higher and
higher with a lazily powerful wingstroke. When it was but a dot in
the sky I heard along the beach a sudden shrill chopped-off cry. A
woman s cry.
A girl ran toward me along the beach.
It could only be Delia.
With a great shout of joy I ran toward her.
The devil might take me if I cared where in the whole world
of Kregen I was if I could have Delia of the Blue Mountains at my
side.
A group of riders burst from the dunes beyond Delia. They [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl freetocraft.keep.pl
will. I recognized their essential goodness and I acknowledged that
I did not understand all the answers to my questions. I failed to
comprehend why they had refused to treat Delia my Delia! Delia
of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains how many nights I
stood by the quarterdeck rail and stared up at the stars and ever and
ever my eyes sought that red star that was Antares, and there, I
knew, lay all of hope or happiness I wanted in all the universe.
I knew what had happened to me. I had been flung out of
Paradise.
Paradise. I had found my heaven and had been debarred from
entering.
After my life of hardship and struggle Aphrasöe was Paradise.
Now that I have lived so long and have visited Earth many
times, always, in some strange way it seems, during times of stress
or crisis, I can speak more calmly of my feelings then. So that you
may better understand the kind of man I am now, speaking into
your little recording apparatus, I should say that on Earth I have
amassed a considerable fortune over the years in the normal course
of business investment. Had I possessed a hundred times that sum
in those days when I once more walked the quarterdeck and
plunged into the battlesmoke on Earth I would have given it all,
over and over, to be returned once more to Kregen of Antares.
When Lloyd s Patriotic Fund voted me a fifty pound sword of
honor I grasped the gaudy thing with its gilt and its seed pearls and
I longed to feel once again the firm grip of a Savanti sword in my
fist.
I do not believe it possible for anyone of Earth to imagine my
state of mind as I thought of the crimson and emerald suns of
Kregen, of the seven moons glowing in the night sky against those
constellations so alien to Earth and yet so familiar to me. The
tortured regrets impelled me to a strange step, for I obtained a
scorpion and kept the thing in a cage. I would stare at its ugliness
for many minutes on end, and hope that some familiar drowsiness
would overtake me. The thing was cursed at by the men when we
had to clear for action, and as bulkheads and cabin partitions were
removed and struck down, I would have my pet scorpion sent
down with the rest.
The Peninsular War opened and I was appointed first
lieutenant aboard Roscommon, a leaky old tub of a seventy-four
whose captain was one of the famous mad captains of the Navy
List. Clearly, before me lay a career as a lieutenant until my hairs
were gray and I was at last discarded on half pay to rot on the
beach. Except that my hair would not turn gray for a thousand
years.
We carried out a number of interesting operations, interesting
only in that they provided a strong anodyne for the ache in my soul.
We took a French eighty gun ship and were thereby cheered. I
heard the officers remarking on the astounding ferocity of my
conduct during the boarding. I did not care. After the battle,
drained of emotion, I stood on the quarterdeck, gripping the rail,
and as always my eyes lifted to the heavens. Alpha Scorpii blazed
its mocking ruby fires into my eyes.
Was that a hint of blueness limning Antares? Was that a blue
shape leering down on me? The shape of a scorpion?
I reached up my arms.
I heard a cry from the quartermaster, and the midshipman of
the watch yelled to the master s mate. I ignored them. The blueness
grew. It was. It was!
I reached out and felt that blueness expand and take my
consciousness into itself and I shouted, loudly and exultantly:
Kregen! And: Delia Delia of Delphond, my Delia of the Blue
Mountains! I return, I return!
I opened my eyes on a sandy beach with the sound of great
waves.
Sick despair clogged my mind. Standing up, I looked around
upon a vast heaving sea, a sandy beach, a line of bushes inland and
beyond that a prairie vast and wide, extending to the farthest
horizon.
The gravity the sun the suns! the feel of the air yes.
Yes, this was the world of Kregen beneath Antares. But but
where was the city? Where the River Aph? Where was Aphrasöe,
the City of the Savanti, the Swinging City?
My eyes adjusted quickly to the warm pink sunshine; but I
could not see what I wanted to see. I hammered a fist into the
sand. Where could I be on the surface of an unknown world? Was I
in Loh, that continent of mysteries and veils and hidden walled
gardens? Or in Gah, that pathetic semblance of a man s sick
dreams where women were chained to bedposts? There were
Havilfar and Turismond, continents of which I knew nothing and
there were the other continents and the nine islands and all the seas
between.
How I cursed my inadequate knowledge of Kregen!
A shadow fleeted between me and that great bloated red sun.
I saw a scarlet feathered bird, with golden feathers about its neck
and head, its black legs extended with wicked claws wide, its broad
wings stiff and stately as it wheeled in hunting circles above me. I
stood up and shook my fist at the Gdoinye. It uttered a harsh
croak. After a time of surveillance it began to wheel higher and
higher with a lazily powerful wingstroke. When it was but a dot in
the sky I heard along the beach a sudden shrill chopped-off cry. A
woman s cry.
A girl ran toward me along the beach.
It could only be Delia.
With a great shout of joy I ran toward her.
The devil might take me if I cared where in the whole world
of Kregen I was if I could have Delia of the Blue Mountains at my
side.
A group of riders burst from the dunes beyond Delia. They [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]