Читать книгу The Face of Heaven - Brian Stableford - Страница 10

Chapter 6

The strangers tried to communicate with the Old Man, but he was not interested in communication. He was not interested in their questions or in their reasons. He was interested primarily in showmanship. The aliens were merely the means to his end.

He exposed himself to them, and they did not kill him. He laughed at them, and they were patently hurt by his laughter. Then he made silence fall, and he began to put his patience on show, knowing that the silent waiting would ultimately hurt the invaders as much as the laughter.

Chemec knew that when the silence had stretched far enough, Yami would have the aliens killed. There was no possible question about that. Chemec saw no other way. Nor did the warriors at the wall. There were some inside who did see things another way, who might have wished that the demands upon Yami were not as they were. The readers, undoubtedly, saw the advantages implicit in making friends with the men from Heaven. They would have wished to do just that. But they knew as well as Yami did that life was simply not like that. There were ways of doing things which had been well tried.

Outside the gate the boy Camlak probably had more sympathy with the readers’ point of view than he had with his father’s. He was studying statecraft carefully, but he was still at the stage when he thought that the Old Man was obeyed because it was simply right that others should obey him. He had no conception of the delicate matters of deciding fitness to rule and make decisions. Decisions came hard to Camlak because his judgment was always crowded with motives and reasons and possibilities. His head would have to be clear of all that before he was allowed to take Yami’s place.

The silence which Yami had made grew old, and finally died.

“I am Yami,” said the Old Man. They were the only words he spoke. He knew the value of words and the majesty of simplicity.

The strangers had grown visibly uneasy once their initial attempts to kill the silence had faded away into muttering confusion and final bewilderment. When Yami spoke, they relaxed as if some wonderful thing had happened. They smiled beneath their macabre masks. One of them reached forward, his hand open as though he wished to take hold of Yami. The Old Man remained still, and stared the hand away as though he were outfacing a snake.

The alien withdrew his hand. “I’m sorry,” he said.

The great gate opened again behind the sitting men. Evidently Yami had been playing a prepared part. The end had been decided before he had stepped out of the gate. The strangers sat, quietly and comfortably, seemingly content, while the young woman Myddal fetched bowls of warm liquid, one by one, and placed one in front of each of the aliens. Eventually, she gave the last bowl to Yami. It obviously contained something different because it was not steaming. The strangers saw this, and even though their minds were crippled they evidently suspected something. But the one who had called himself Ryan Magner sipped from his own bowl and signaled with his hand. The others did the same.

Yami drained his bowl, and watched while his victims did the same. Then he laughed again—not loudly, this time, nor insistently. No one joined in. It was the laugh of a private moment—a gesture of personal satisfaction. The laugh was low, and it bubbled over the Old Man’s tongue.

“It’s poison, Ryan,” said one of the strangers, bitterly. Three of them—all except the leader—knew then that they had been murdered. The leader would not admit it, though he must have felt it to be true, by now.

“You bastards,” said one of the men, as they all struggled to rise. Only one actually managed to make it to his feet.

As the man stood tall, Chemec raised himself to the full extent of his three feet ten inches and reached up to kill the man. He was careful to smash the spine below the atlas vertebra, so as to preserve the skull unblemished.