[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
And the Heechee came to believe that they were still somewhere around. For the
Page 72
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
term that had been so hard to translate described the expansion of the heavens
and the reversal by the flame-wielders so that all the stars and galaxies
would crush together again. For a purpose. And it was impossible to believe
that these titans, whoever they were, would not linger to see the results of
the process they had begun.
And the bright Heechee dream crumbled, and the slush dwellers sang a new edda:
the song of the Heechee, who visited, learned to be afraid, and ran away.
So the Heechee set their booby-traps, hid most of the other evidence of their
existence, and retreated to their hidey-hole at the core of the Galaxy.
In one sense, the sludge dwellers were just one of the booby-traps. LaDzhaRi
knew that; they all did; that was why he had followed the ancestral
commpndment and reported that first touch of another mind on his. He expected
an answer, though it had been years, even in LaDzhaRi's time, since there had
been a Heechee manifestation of any kind, and then only the quick touch of a
routine TPT survey. He had also expected that when the answer came he would
not like it. The whole epic struggle of building and launching the
interstellar ship, the centuries already invested in their millennium-long
journey-wasted! It was true that a flight of a thousand years to LaDzhaRi was
no more than an ordinary whaling voyage for a Nantucket captain; but a whaler
would not have liked being picked up in mid-Pacific and taken home empty,
either. The whole crew had been upset. The excitement in the sailship had been
so great that some of the crew involuntarily went into fast mode; the sludgy
liquid was so churned that cavitation bubbles formed. One of the females was
dead. One of the males, TsuTsuNga, was so demoralized that he was pawing over
the surviving females, and not for dinner, either. "Please don't be foolish,"
LaDzhaRi pleaded. For a male to impregnate a female, as TsuTsuNga seemed about
to do, involved so large an investment of energy that sometimes it threatened
his life. For the females there was no threat-their lives were simply
forfeited in order to bear a fertilized child-but they didn't know that, of
course, or much of anything else, really. But TsulsuNga said steadily:
"If I cannot become immortal by voyaging to another star, then at least I will
father a son."
"No! Please! Think, my friend," begged LaDzhaRi, "we can be home if we wish.
Can return as heroes to our arcologies, can sing our eddas so the entire world
will hear-" For the sludge of their homes carried sound as well as a sea, and
their songs reached as far as a great whale's.
TsuTsuNga touched LaDzhaRi briefly, almost contemptuously, at least
dismissively. "We're not heroes!" he said. "Go away and let me do this
female."
And LaDzhaRi reluctantly released him, and listened to the dwindling sounds as
he moved away. It was true. They were failed heroes at best.
Robin does not explain very well what the Heechee were afraid of. They had
deduced that the purpose of causing the universe to contract again was to
return it to the primordial atom
-after which it would burst in another Big Bang and start a new universe. They
further deduced that in that case, the physical laws that govern the universe
might develop in a different way.
What scared them most was the thought of beings who thought they would be
happier in a universe with different physical laws.
The sailship people were not without such human traits as pride. It did not
please them to be the Heechees'-what? Slaves? Not exactly, for the only
service they were required to perform was to report, via sealed-beam
communicator, any evidence of other spacefaring intelligence. They were very
glad to do that for their own sakes, more than for the Heechees'. If not
slaves, then what?
There was only one word that was right: pets.
So the racial psyche of the slush dwellers contained a patch of tarnish they
could never burnish away, with whatever feats of interstellar venturing they
Page 73
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
might accomplish in their vast, slow staijammers. They knew they were pets. It
was not the first time for them. Long before the Heechee caine they had been
chattels, in almost the same way, to beings quite unlike the Heechee, or
humans, or themselves; and when, generations before, their sooth-singers had
roared the ancient eddas about those others into the Heechee listening
machine, the slush dwellers had not failed to notice that the Heechee ran
away. A pet was not the worst thing one could be.
So love and fear were abroad in the universe. For love (what passed among the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl aikidobyd.xlx.pl
And the Heechee came to believe that they were still somewhere around. For the
Page 72
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
term that had been so hard to translate described the expansion of the heavens
and the reversal by the flame-wielders so that all the stars and galaxies
would crush together again. For a purpose. And it was impossible to believe
that these titans, whoever they were, would not linger to see the results of
the process they had begun.
And the bright Heechee dream crumbled, and the slush dwellers sang a new edda:
the song of the Heechee, who visited, learned to be afraid, and ran away.
So the Heechee set their booby-traps, hid most of the other evidence of their
existence, and retreated to their hidey-hole at the core of the Galaxy.
In one sense, the sludge dwellers were just one of the booby-traps. LaDzhaRi
knew that; they all did; that was why he had followed the ancestral
commpndment and reported that first touch of another mind on his. He expected
an answer, though it had been years, even in LaDzhaRi's time, since there had
been a Heechee manifestation of any kind, and then only the quick touch of a
routine TPT survey. He had also expected that when the answer came he would
not like it. The whole epic struggle of building and launching the
interstellar ship, the centuries already invested in their millennium-long
journey-wasted! It was true that a flight of a thousand years to LaDzhaRi was
no more than an ordinary whaling voyage for a Nantucket captain; but a whaler
would not have liked being picked up in mid-Pacific and taken home empty,
either. The whole crew had been upset. The excitement in the sailship had been
so great that some of the crew involuntarily went into fast mode; the sludgy
liquid was so churned that cavitation bubbles formed. One of the females was
dead. One of the males, TsuTsuNga, was so demoralized that he was pawing over
the surviving females, and not for dinner, either. "Please don't be foolish,"
LaDzhaRi pleaded. For a male to impregnate a female, as TsuTsuNga seemed about
to do, involved so large an investment of energy that sometimes it threatened
his life. For the females there was no threat-their lives were simply
forfeited in order to bear a fertilized child-but they didn't know that, of
course, or much of anything else, really. But TsulsuNga said steadily:
"If I cannot become immortal by voyaging to another star, then at least I will
father a son."
"No! Please! Think, my friend," begged LaDzhaRi, "we can be home if we wish.
Can return as heroes to our arcologies, can sing our eddas so the entire world
will hear-" For the sludge of their homes carried sound as well as a sea, and
their songs reached as far as a great whale's.
TsuTsuNga touched LaDzhaRi briefly, almost contemptuously, at least
dismissively. "We're not heroes!" he said. "Go away and let me do this
female."
And LaDzhaRi reluctantly released him, and listened to the dwindling sounds as
he moved away. It was true. They were failed heroes at best.
Robin does not explain very well what the Heechee were afraid of. They had
deduced that the purpose of causing the universe to contract again was to
return it to the primordial atom
-after which it would burst in another Big Bang and start a new universe. They
further deduced that in that case, the physical laws that govern the universe
might develop in a different way.
What scared them most was the thought of beings who thought they would be
happier in a universe with different physical laws.
The sailship people were not without such human traits as pride. It did not
please them to be the Heechees'-what? Slaves? Not exactly, for the only
service they were required to perform was to report, via sealed-beam
communicator, any evidence of other spacefaring intelligence. They were very
glad to do that for their own sakes, more than for the Heechees'. If not
slaves, then what?
There was only one word that was right: pets.
So the racial psyche of the slush dwellers contained a patch of tarnish they
could never burnish away, with whatever feats of interstellar venturing they
Page 73
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
might accomplish in their vast, slow staijammers. They knew they were pets. It
was not the first time for them. Long before the Heechee caine they had been
chattels, in almost the same way, to beings quite unlike the Heechee, or
humans, or themselves; and when, generations before, their sooth-singers had
roared the ancient eddas about those others into the Heechee listening
machine, the slush dwellers had not failed to notice that the Heechee ran
away. A pet was not the worst thing one could be.
So love and fear were abroad in the universe. For love (what passed among the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]