[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
somewhere, looking in. My Siamese twin.
Not yet, I decided. Not yet.
Classes started shortly after. They decided that both Ti and I would undergo
as much training as we could take, although separately, of course. Only the
basic stuff could be group-administered, and I'd already had that. I was
curious to see what Ti might come up with, and hopeful, too.
I had been somewhat nervous when told that they were a religious cult, but
aside from a few offhand references and the fact that there were occasional
prayers, like before meals, and temple hours, when the staff went off
somewhere and did whatever they did, there was no pushing of the faith, no
mumbo-jumbo, and no attempt either to convert us or to indoctrinate us with
their beliefs. Their religion interested me no more than the faiths of Bronz
or O'Higgins did, and I was thankful for its lack of intrusiveness.
Of the others who had come with us I saw nothing. About two weeks into the
training I was informed that the witches had gone, returning to their strange
Page 120
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
village, but Father Bronz was said to be involved in some project of his own
at the Institute, something that required the use of their massive handwritten
library scrolls and some of their lab facilities. I wondered idly whether he,
now seeing that it was possible, was trying to crack the
O'Higgins secret.
I made easy progress in the use of the power itself, but I began to realize
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20...rds%20of%20the%20Diamond%201%
20-%20Lilith.html (232 of 277) [1/17/03 4:28:29 AM]
Lilith: A Snake in the Grass that things would still be very slow, since, as
Ti's example had so graphically pointed out, just having the power to do
something wasn't enough. You needed the knowledge to apply it properly, and
that could take years.
Still, a lot could be done in general terms, and it became absurdly easy for
me to do so. Weaving patterns, duplicating patterns as I had with the chair,
were sun-pie as long as we were talking inanimate objects. O'Higgins had
likened the Warden organism to some sort of alien organic computer, and that
was a pretty good analogy. But not a lot of little computers, all components
in a single, massively preprogrammed organism.
"Think of them," one of my instructors said, "as cells of Mother Lilith. Your
own cells all contain DNA spirals encoded with your entire genetic makeup.
Also, one part of that complex code tells that particular cell how to behave,
how to form and grow and act and react as part of the whole. The Warden cells,
as we call them, are like those in your own body. They are preprogrammed with
an impossibly complex picture of how this planet should be, and each one knows
its own place or part in that whole; What we do is slightly mutate the Warden
cell. Essentially, we feed it false data and fool it into doing what we want
instead of what it wants. Because our action is extremely localized when
compared to the whole of Lilith, and because we can concentrate our willpower
on such a tiny spot, we are able to do so.
Not on a large scale, of course, but on a relatively localized scale."
I looked around at the sumptuous surroundings of the Institute. "Localized?"
My instructor just nodded. "Consider the mass of the planet. Consider the
number of molecules that go into its composition. A colony of Wardens for
every molecule. Now, do you think this is more than a tiny aberration, a
benign cancer, as it were?"
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20...rds%20of%20the%20Diamond%201%
20-%20Lilith.html (233 of 277) [1/17/03 4:28:29 AM]
Lilith: A Snake in the Grass
I saw the point.
The more I practiced, the easier everything became. Although I was a little
put off when I discovered that most of the silky cloth I'd seen was made from
worm spit, I soon dismissed that as another cultural prejudice and had my own
clothing with the option and ability to make more. Burning holes in rock and
shaping those holes to suit my design also proved very easy: you just told the
Wardens governing the molecules to disengage. Unfortunately, the skill aspect
again came into play here, and I decided that I was cut out to be neither an
engineer nor an architect. What I had done to Kronlon, the
Institute considered an abuse of power, since what it seemed to amount to was
an overloading of the Warden input circuits. They burned themselves out in
some manner.
Classes in combat emphasized defense, but took a lot of the mystery out of
what I'd seen. Knowing the proper points in an opponent's nervous system was
as important in the mental combat of Warden cells as in physical stuff like
judo. The trick was to keep total control over your own Wardens while knocking
out those of your opponent, a really nasty task requiring not only that you
have more willpower and self-control than your opponent but also that you have
Page 121
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
an enormous ability to concentrate on several things at once.
I learned as much as I could learn, and although I felt elated when they no
longer gave me the potion and I grew stronger still, I realized that only
experience could fine-tune my skills. The key test of my power was when they
brought two small steel rods from Medusa, which, though containing [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl aikidobyd.xlx.pl
somewhere, looking in. My Siamese twin.
Not yet, I decided. Not yet.
Classes started shortly after. They decided that both Ti and I would undergo
as much training as we could take, although separately, of course. Only the
basic stuff could be group-administered, and I'd already had that. I was
curious to see what Ti might come up with, and hopeful, too.
I had been somewhat nervous when told that they were a religious cult, but
aside from a few offhand references and the fact that there were occasional
prayers, like before meals, and temple hours, when the staff went off
somewhere and did whatever they did, there was no pushing of the faith, no
mumbo-jumbo, and no attempt either to convert us or to indoctrinate us with
their beliefs. Their religion interested me no more than the faiths of Bronz
or O'Higgins did, and I was thankful for its lack of intrusiveness.
Of the others who had come with us I saw nothing. About two weeks into the
training I was informed that the witches had gone, returning to their strange
Page 120
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
village, but Father Bronz was said to be involved in some project of his own
at the Institute, something that required the use of their massive handwritten
library scrolls and some of their lab facilities. I wondered idly whether he,
now seeing that it was possible, was trying to crack the
O'Higgins secret.
I made easy progress in the use of the power itself, but I began to realize
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20...rds%20of%20the%20Diamond%201%
20-%20Lilith.html (232 of 277) [1/17/03 4:28:29 AM]
Lilith: A Snake in the Grass that things would still be very slow, since, as
Ti's example had so graphically pointed out, just having the power to do
something wasn't enough. You needed the knowledge to apply it properly, and
that could take years.
Still, a lot could be done in general terms, and it became absurdly easy for
me to do so. Weaving patterns, duplicating patterns as I had with the chair,
were sun-pie as long as we were talking inanimate objects. O'Higgins had
likened the Warden organism to some sort of alien organic computer, and that
was a pretty good analogy. But not a lot of little computers, all components
in a single, massively preprogrammed organism.
"Think of them," one of my instructors said, "as cells of Mother Lilith. Your
own cells all contain DNA spirals encoded with your entire genetic makeup.
Also, one part of that complex code tells that particular cell how to behave,
how to form and grow and act and react as part of the whole. The Warden cells,
as we call them, are like those in your own body. They are preprogrammed with
an impossibly complex picture of how this planet should be, and each one knows
its own place or part in that whole; What we do is slightly mutate the Warden
cell. Essentially, we feed it false data and fool it into doing what we want
instead of what it wants. Because our action is extremely localized when
compared to the whole of Lilith, and because we can concentrate our willpower
on such a tiny spot, we are able to do so.
Not on a large scale, of course, but on a relatively localized scale."
I looked around at the sumptuous surroundings of the Institute. "Localized?"
My instructor just nodded. "Consider the mass of the planet. Consider the
number of molecules that go into its composition. A colony of Wardens for
every molecule. Now, do you think this is more than a tiny aberration, a
benign cancer, as it were?"
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20...rds%20of%20the%20Diamond%201%
20-%20Lilith.html (233 of 277) [1/17/03 4:28:29 AM]
Lilith: A Snake in the Grass
I saw the point.
The more I practiced, the easier everything became. Although I was a little
put off when I discovered that most of the silky cloth I'd seen was made from
worm spit, I soon dismissed that as another cultural prejudice and had my own
clothing with the option and ability to make more. Burning holes in rock and
shaping those holes to suit my design also proved very easy: you just told the
Wardens governing the molecules to disengage. Unfortunately, the skill aspect
again came into play here, and I decided that I was cut out to be neither an
engineer nor an architect. What I had done to Kronlon, the
Institute considered an abuse of power, since what it seemed to amount to was
an overloading of the Warden input circuits. They burned themselves out in
some manner.
Classes in combat emphasized defense, but took a lot of the mystery out of
what I'd seen. Knowing the proper points in an opponent's nervous system was
as important in the mental combat of Warden cells as in physical stuff like
judo. The trick was to keep total control over your own Wardens while knocking
out those of your opponent, a really nasty task requiring not only that you
have more willpower and self-control than your opponent but also that you have
Page 121
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
an enormous ability to concentrate on several things at once.
I learned as much as I could learn, and although I felt elated when they no
longer gave me the potion and I grew stronger still, I realized that only
experience could fine-tune my skills. The key test of my power was when they
brought two small steel rods from Medusa, which, though containing [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]