The Quest - Smith Wilbur (читаем книги онлайн бесплатно TXT) 📗

There was much more in this vein. Then he reached the next chapter, headed simply 'Breeding'.

As with the donor, the impregnators should be young and healthy, without defect or blemish. Under the present system they are usually selected as a reward for some service to the state. Often this is for military accomplishment. Care must be exercised to prevent any establishing emotional ties with the donor. They should be rotated at brief intervals. As soon as the donor's pregnancy is confirmed she must be denied any further contact with her impregnator.

Taita looked up sightlessly at the shelf of tablets directly in front of him. He remembered the stark terror of little Sidudu. He recalled vividly

her pathetic plea: 'Please, Magus! I beg you! Please help me! If I don't rid myself of the baby they will kill me. I don't want to die for Onka's bastard.'

Sidudu the runaway had been one of the donors. Not a wife or mother, but a donor. Onka was one of her impregnators. Not her husband, lover or mate, but her impregnator. Taita's horror mounted steadily, but he forced himself to read on. Trie next section was headed 'Harvesting'.

Some phrases seemed to leap at him from the text.

The harvesting must take place between the twentieth and twenty-fourth week of pregnancy.

The foetus must be removed intact and entire from the womb.

Natural birth should not be allowed to take place as this has proved to be detrimental to the quality of the seedings.

As the chance of the donor surviving after the removal of the foetus is remote, her life should be terminated immediately. The surgeon should usually take measures to prevent unnecessary suffering. The preferred method is to place the donor under restraint. Her limbs are pinioned and she is gagged to prevent her screams alarming the other donors. The foetus is then removed swiftly by frontal section of the abdomen. Immediately this has been carried out the donor's life should be terminated by strangulation. The ligature is kept in place until the heart has stopped beating and her flesh has cooled.

Taita hurried on to the next chapter, entitled 'The foetus'. His heart was beating so rapidly that he could hear it resonating in his eardrums.

The sex of the foetus appears to be unimportant, although it seems logical and desirable that it should be the same as that of the recipient. The foetus should be healthy and well formed with no detectable deformity or defect. If it does not conform to these criteria it should be discarded. For these reasons it is advisable to have more than one donor available. If the area to be grafted is extensive there should be a choice of at least three donors available. Five would be a more desirable number.

Taita rocked back. Three donors. He remembered the three girls in the waterfall on the day of their first arrival. They had been brought as sacrificial lambs to provide a new eye for Meren. Five donors. He remembered the five girls whom Onka had been bringing up the mountain when

they met him on the pathway. Had they all died of strangulation in the approved manner? Had it been one of them he had heard weeping in the night? Had she known what was about to happen to her and the babe in her womb? Was that why she had wept? He jumped up from the table, rushed out of the building and into the forest. As soon as he was hidden among the trees he doubled over and retched painfully, vomiting his shame and guilt. He leant against the trunk of one of the trees and stared down at the bulge beneath his tunic.

'Is this the reason why those innocents were slaughtered?' He drew the small knife from the sheath on his girdle. 'I will hack it off and force it down Hannah's throat. I will choke her with it!' he raged. 'It is a poisonous gift that will bring me only guilt and torment.'

His hand was shaking so violently that the knife slipped from his fingers. He covered his eyes with both hands. 'I hate it — I hate myself!'

he whispered. His mind was filled with violent and confused images. He remembered the frenzied feasting of the crocodiles in the azure lake.

He heard the weeping of women and the wailing of infants, the sounds of sorrow and despair.

Then the confusion cleared and he heard again the voice of Demeter the savant: This Eos is the minion of the Lie. She is the consummate impostor, the usurper, the deceiver, the thief, the devourer of infants.

'She is the devourer of infants,' he repeated. 'She is the one who orders and directs these atrocities. I must turn my hatred for myself upon her. She is the one I truly hate. She is the one I have come to destroy.

Perhaps by grafting this thing upon me she has unwittingly given me the instrument of her own destruction.' He lifted his hands from his eyes and stared at them. They were no longer trembling.

'Screw up your courage and resolve, Taita of Gallala,' he whispered.

'The skirmishing is over. The battle royal is about to begin.'

He left the forest and made his way back to the library to retrieve Dr Rei's scroll. He knew he must read and remember every detail. He must know how they desecrated the bodies of the little ones to create the vile seedings. He must make sure that the sacrifice of the infants was never forgotten. He went to the worktable where he had left the scroll, but it was gone.

By the time he reached his own rooms in the sanatorium the sun had gone behind the crater wall. The servants had lit oil lamps, and the bowl that contained his evening meal was warming over the glowing charcoal in the copper brazier. After he had eaten sparingly, then brewed and drunk a bowl of the coffee grown by Dr Assem, he settled himself cross-legged on the sleeping mat and composed himself for meditation. This was his nightly routine, and the watcher at the hidden peep-hole would find nothing unusual in it.

At last he doused the oil lamp and the room was plunged into darkness. Within a short time the aura of the man behind the peep-hole faded as he left his station for the night. Taita waited a little longer, then relit the lamp, but turned down the wick until it was only a soft glow.

He held the Periapt in his cupped hands and concentrated on the mental image of Lostris, who had become Fenn. He opened the locket and took out the locks of her hair, the old and the new. His love for her was the central redoubt upon which his defences against Eos hinged. Holding the curls to his lips he affirmed that love.

'Shield me, my love,' he prayed. 'Give me strength.' He felt the power that flowed from the soft hair warm his soul, then laid it back in the locket, and took out the fragment of red stone they had removed from Meren's eye. He placed it in the palm of his hand and concentrated upon it.

'It is cold and hard,' he whispered, 'as is my hatred of Eos.' Love was the shield, hatred the sword. He affirmed both. Then he placed the stone in the locket with the hair and hung the Periapt round his neck. He blew out the lamp and lay down, but sleep would not come.

Disjointed memories of Fenn haunted him. He remembered her laughing and crying. He remembered her smiling and teasing. He remembered her serious expression as she studied some problem he had set for her. He remembered her body lying warm and soft beside him in the night, the gentle sigh of her breathing and the beat of her heart against his.

I must see her once more. It may be the last time. He sat up on his mat. I dare not cast for her, but I can overlook her. These two astral manoeuvres were similar but in essence very different. To cast was to shout to her across the ether, when an unwelcome listener might detect the disturbance. To overlook was to spy upon her secretly, like the watcher at the peep-hole. Only a savant and seer, like Eos, might be able

to detect it, as he had detected the watcher. However, he had refrained from any astral activity for so long now that the witch might no longer be on the alert.'