Balarama: переводы

→Lokar couldn't believe he had survived in his tiny shelter, where he should have been wiped out. There was no logical explanation, but a Priest of the Divided God did not look for logic. He found himself wrapped up in his own revelation, his own ecstasy. He bent down to the fresh sand at his feet, scooped up a handful and looked at it in his palm. He pinched a single grain between thumb and forefinger and lifted it to the sunlight, studying the sparkle. He saw in even this tiny fleck of silica a symbol of miraculous, divine power. He smiled.

→Lokar heard shouts and voices, other members of the scavenging team crawling out of where they had huddled during the night, assessing the losses, counting the casualties, and cursing. Guriff's voice was unmistakable as he shouted profanities, finding one set of wreckage after another.

→Debris from the entire encampment had scattered, probably over an expanse of kilometers. Nearby, one of the prefabricated structures had been destroyed, and everyone inside was surely dead. Although the hangar dome was also breached, the vehicles and 'thopters were still intact, though damaged.

→Rakis seemed pristine and virginal. He blinked into the dawn radiance, rubbed the dust from his face, and stared at the freshly scoured landscape. The early morning sunlight sparkled across fresh sand that had been freed from the glassy crust that covered so many dunes.

→Finally, he blinked and looked around him to see washed-out daylight. Miraculously, his tent still stood erect, but the fabric had been scoured down to fine gauzy remnants. Breezes, now gentle in the exhausted aftermath of the terrific winds, spilled through tiny gaps in the tent, stirring against him. The priest stood up and parted the spiderweb-thin fibers of the wall of his tent, like a man emerging from a womb.

→Hours passed, and he didn't actually sleep so much as go into a deep trance. Sand and dust sprinkled his face, caking his eyes and his nose.

→The men of Guriff's team had made their choices and placed their bets. Some had dug themselves underground in Keen; others believed in the security of their own structures. Their fates had been written by a hand of fire in the Book of Heaven from the moment they were born. In the morning after the storm had passed, Lokar would see what had been decided.

→Lokar held on, rocking himself throughout the night. He heard a clatter and a groan as one of the camp's larger, heavily armored structures was torn apart in the gale, but if he ran outside, the blowing sand grains would flay the flesh from his bones.

→The reinforced tent fabric stretched taut, as if demons were breathing against it. Lokar knew he could survive this storm. A storm had unquestionable power—yet faith was more powerful still.

→Lokar huddled with his bony knees drawn up to his chest, his arms wrapped around them, his eyes closed. He recited his prayers over and over, raising his voice until he was practically shouting against the roar outside. The true God could hear even the tiniest whisper, no matter what the background din might be, but Lokar comforted himself by hearing his own words.

→That night the wind howled like an awakening beast, and abrasive sand scratched against the fabric of the priest's small tent. The storm whispered and muttered maddening temptations like the hoarse voice of Shaitan.

→Guriff cursed under his breath, then trudged off to meet with his crew. . . .

→Lokar responded with a vacant smile and a shrug. "I shall remain in my tent, but you do whatever you see fit. Only God can save us. No shelter in the universe can protect you if He deems that tonight is the night you will die."

→Taking the warning seriously, Guriff shouted for his men, picked up a commlink and summoned his teams for an immediate emergency meeting. "Tell me then, Priest, what shall we do? You've lived through storms here before. What is our best option for shelter? In the tunnels under Keen, or sealed inside our shelters? What about the hangar dome? Will the vehicles be safe?"

→"This will not be usual, Guriff. Not in any way." The priest continued to stare. He had not moved. "The whole environment has been thrown into turmoil. Some weather patterns might have been suppressed, and others inflamed." Lokar nodded toward the blood-red horizon. "We will be lucky if we survive this night."

→"I thought that with the bombardment, with the fusing of so much sand, the usual Coriolis effect—"

→"You know what it is," Lokar said. "You can see. It's a storm, maybe the mother of them all."

→"What I wouldn't give for a set of weathersats." Guriff propped his hands on his hips and sniffed the air. "That looks dangerous." He had already called back the exploration 'thopters and groundcars, though a team continued to dig in the tunnels of buried Keen, excavating a large labyrinth underground.

→Lokar knew what the signs meant. Because of his human failings, he felt the thrill of fear; because of his religious faith, he felt awe. Rakis was wounded, perhaps mortally, but not entirely dead. The planet was restless in its sleep.

→Two weeks later, the sunset looked like a layer of spilled blood over a hot flame. Dust smeared the horizon in an ominous approaching line. The air around the settlement, which normally held a silence so deep as to be a hole of sound, was alive with an angry background hum like buried thunder.