The Space Trilogy. C. S. Lewis

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СКАЧАТЬ it voyaging; it will not come again. Let it go down; the hnau rises from it. This is the second life, the other beginning. Open, oh coloured world, without weight, without shore. You are second and better; this was first and feeble. Once the worlds were hot within and brought forth life, but only the pale plants, the dark plants. We see their children when they grow today, out of the sun’s light in the sad places. After, the heaven made grow another kind of worlds; the high climbers, the bright-haired forests, cheeks of flowers. First were the darker, then the brighter. First was the worlds’ brood, then the suns’ brood.’

      This was as much of it as he contrived later to remember and could translate. As the song ended Oyarsa said:

      ‘Let us scatter the movements which were their bodies. So will Maleldil scatter all worlds when the first and feeble is worn.’

      He made a sign to one of the pfifltriggi, who instantly arose and approached the corpses. The hrossa, now singing again but very softly, drew back at least ten paces. The pfifltrigg touched each of the three dead in turn with some small object that appeared to be made of glass or crystal – and then jumped away with one of his frog-like leaps. Ransom closed his eyes to protect them from a blinding light and felt something like a very strong wind blowing in his face, for a fraction of a second. Then all was calm again, and the three biers were empty.

      ‘God! That would be a trick worth knowing on earth,’ said Devine to Ransom. ‘Solves the murderer’s problem about the disposal of the body, eh?’

      But Ransom, who was thinking of Hyoi, did not answer him; and before he spoke again everyone’s attention was diverted by the return of the unhappy Weston among his guards.

       20

      The hross who headed this procession was a conscientious creature and began at once explaining itself in a rather troubled voice.

      ‘I hope we have done right, Oyarsa,’ it said. ‘But we do not know. We dipped his head in the cold water seven times, but the seventh time something fell off it. We had thought it was the top of his head, but now we saw it was a covering made of the skin of some other creature. Then some said we had done your will with the seven dips, and others said not. In the end we dipped it seven times more. We hope that was right. The creature talked a lot between the dips, and most between the second seven, but we could not understand it.’

      ‘You have done very well, Hnoo,’ said Oyarsa. ‘Stand away that I may see it, for now I will speak to it.’

      The guards fell away on each side. Weston’s usually pale face, under the bracing influence of the cold water, had assumed the colour of a ripe tomato, and his hair, which had naturally not been cut since he reached Malacandra, was plastered in straight, lank masses across his forehead. A good deal of water was still dripping over his nose and ears. His expression – unfortunately wasted on an audience ignorant of terrestrial physiognomy – was that of a brave man suffering in a great cause, and rather eager than reluctant to face the worst or even to provoke it. In explanation of his conduct it is only fair to remember that he had already that morning endured all the terrors of an expected martyrdom and all the anticlimax of fourteen compulsory cold douches. Devine, who knew his man, shouted out to Weston in English:

      ‘Steady, Weston. These devils can split the atom or something pretty like it. Be careful what you say to them and don’t let’s have any of your bloody nonsense.’

      ‘Huh!’ said Weston. ‘So you’ve gone native too?’

      ‘Be silent,’ said the voice of Oyarsa. ‘You, thick one, have told me nothing of yourself, so I will tell it to you. In your own world you have attained great wisdom concerning bodies and by this you have been able to make a ship that can cross the heaven; but in all other things you have the mind of an animal. When first you came here, I sent for you, meaning you nothing but honour. The darkness in your mind filled you with fear. Because you thought I meant evil to you, you went as a beast goes against a beast of some other kind, and snared this Ransom. You would give him up to the evil you feared. Today, seeing him here, to save your own life, you would have given him to me a second time, still thinking I meant him hurt. These are your dealings with your own kind. And what you intend to my people, I know. Already you have killed some. And you have come here to kill them all. To you it is nothing whether a creature is hnau or not. At first I thought this was because you cared only whether a creature had a body like your own; but Ransom has that and you would kill him as lightly as any of my hnau. I did not know that the Bent One had done so much in your world and still I do not understand it. If you were mine, I would unbody you even now. Do not think follies; by my hand Maleldil does greater things than this, and I can unmake you even on the borders of your own world’s air. But I do not yet resolve to do this. It is for you to speak. Let me see if there is anything in your mind besides fear and death and desire.’

      Weston turned to Ransom. ‘I see,’ he said, ‘that you have chosen the most momentous crisis in the history of the human race to betray it.’ Then he turned in the direction of the voice.

      ‘I know you kill us,’ he said. ‘Me not afraid. Others come, make it our world –’

      But Devine had jumped to his feet, and interrupted him.

      ‘No, no, Oyarsa,’ he shouted. ‘You no listen him. He very foolish man, he have dreams. We little people, only want pretty sun-bloods. You give us plenty sun-bloods, we go back into sky, you never see us no more. All done, see?’

      ‘Silence,’ said Oyarsa. There was an almost imperceptible change in the light, if it could be called light, out of which the voice came, and Devine crumpled up and fell back on the ground. When he resumed his sitting position he was white and panting.

      ‘Speak on,’ said Oyarsa to Weston.

      ‘Me no … no …’ began Weston in Malacandrian and then broke off. ‘I can’t say what I want in their accursed language,’ he said in English.

      ‘Speak to Ransom and he shall turn it into our speech,’ said Oyarsa.

      Weston accepted the arrangement at once. He believed that the hour of his death was come and he was determined to utter the thing – almost the only thing outside his own science – which he had to say. He cleared his throat, almost he struck a gesture, and began:

      ‘To you I may seem a vulgar robber, but I bear on my shoulders the destiny of the human race. Your tribal life with its stone-age weapons and beehive huts, its primitive coracles and elementary social structure, has nothing to compare with our civilisation – with our science, medicine and law, our armies, our architecture, our commerce, and our transport system which is rapidly annihilating space and time. Our right to supersede you is the right of the higher over the lower. Life –’

      ‘Half a moment,’ said Ransom in English. ‘That’s about as much as I can manage at one go.’ Then, turning to Oyarsa, he began translating as well as he could. The process was difficult and the result – which he felt to be rather unsatisfactory – was something like this:

      ‘Among us, Oyarsa, there is a kind of hnau who will take other hnaus’ food and – and things, when they are not looking. He says he is not an ordinary one of that kind. He says what he does now will make very different things happen to those of our people who are not yet born. He says that, among you, hnau of one kindred all live together and the hrossa have spears like those we used a very long time ago and your huts are small and round and your boats small and light and like our old ones, and you have one ruler. He says it СКАЧАТЬ