[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Thanks for that, I said coldly.
Just don t ever change, man. Don t ever change.
The sleds that had lifted from the station had all disappeared, but others were materializing from the
blackness, tiny points of silver and light coming home from the assembly platforms, looking no more
substantial than the clouds of barnacles. Finally Gerald said, I got things to take care of. He waved at
the barnacles. Leave this shit alone, will you? After everything else gets settled, maybe then we ll look
into it. Right now all you doing is wasting my fucking time.
I watched him moving off along the curve of the module toward the airlock, feeling somewhat put off
by his brusque reaction and his analysis. I respected him a great deal as a professional, and his clinical
assessment of my abilities made me doubt that his respect for me was so unqualified.
There was a faint click against the side of my helmet. I reached up and plucked off a barnacle. Lying
in the palm of my gauntlet, its plates closed, its olive surface threaded with gold and crimson, it seemed
cryptic, magical, rare, like something one would find after a search lasting half a lifetime, a relic buried
with a wizard king, lying in his ribcage in place of a heart. I had shifted my position so that the light from
the port behind me cast my shadow over the surface, and, a neurological change having been triggered
by the shift in light intensity, some of the barnacles in the shadow were opening their plates and probing
the vacuum with stubby gray tongues, trying to feed. It was an uncanny sight, the way their tongues
moved, stiffly, jerkily, like bad animation, like creatures in a grotesque garden hallucinated by Hawthorne
or Baudelaire, and standing there among them, with the technological hodgepodge of the station
stretching away in every direction, I felt as if I were stranded in a pool of primitive time, looking out onto
the future. It was, I realized, a feeling akin to that I d had in London whenever I thought about the space
colonies, the outposts strung across the system.
Gnawing bones.
As my old Classics professor would have said, Gerald s metaphor was a happy choice.
And now I had time to consider, I realized that Gerald was right: After all the years on Solitaire, I
would be ill-suited for life in London, my instincts rusty, incapable of readjusting to the city s rabid
intensity. But I did not believe he was right to wait for Samuelson to move against us. Once the
Magnificence set their sights on a goal, they were not inclined to use half-measures. I was too disciplined
to break ranks with Gerald, but there was nothing to prevent me from preparing myself for the day of
judgment. Samuelson might bring us down, I told myself, but I would see to it that he would not outlive
us. I was not aware, however, that judgment day was almost at hand.
-=*=-
Perhaps it was the trouble of those days that brought Arlie and me closer together, that reawakened
us to the sweetness of our bodies and the sharp mesh of our souls, to all those things we had come to
take for granted. And perhaps Bill had something to do with it. As dismal an item as he was, it may be his
presence served -- as Arlie had suggested -- to supply us with some missing essential of warmth or heart.
But whatever the cause, it was a great good time for us, and I came once again to perceive her not
merely as someone who could cure a hurt or make me stop thinking for a while, but as the embodiment
of my hopes. After everything I had witnessed, all the shabby, bloody evidence I had been presented of
our kind s pettiness and greed, that I could feel anything so pure for another human being... Christ, it
astounded me! And if that much could happen, then why not the fulfillment of other, more improbable
hopes? For instance, suppose a ship were to return with news of a habitable world. I pictured the two of
us boarding, flying away, landing, being washed clean in the struggle of a stern and simple life.
Foolishness, I told myself. Wild ignorance. Yet each time I fell into bed with Arlie, though the darkness
that covered us seemed always imbued with a touch of black satin, with the sticky patina of the Strange
Magnificence, I would sense in the back of my mind that in touching her I was flying away again, and in
entering her I was making landfall on some perfect blue-green sphere. There came a night, however,
when to entertain such thoughts seemed not mere folly but the height of indulgence.
It was close upon half-eleven, and the three of us, Bill, Arlie, and I, were sitting in the living room, the
walls playing a holographic scenario of a white-capped sea and Alps of towering cumulus, with whales
breeching and a three-masted schooner coasting on the wind, vanishing whenever it reached the corner,
then reappearing on the adjoining wall. Bill and Arlie were on the sofa, and she was telling him stories
about Earth, lies about the wonderful animals that lived there, trying to distract him from his obsessive
nattering about the barnacles. I had just brought out several of the packet charges that Gerald and I had
hidden away, and I was working at reshaping them into smaller units, a project that had occupied me for
several nights. Bill had previously seemed frightened by them and had never mentioned them. That night,
however, he pointed at the charges and said, Splosives?
Very good, I said. The ones we found, you and I. The ones I was working with yesterday.
Remember?
Uh-huh. He watched me reinsert a timer into one of the charges and then asked what I was doing.
Making some presents, I told him.
Birthday presents?
More like Guy Fawkes Day presents.
He had no clue as to the identity of Guy Fawkes, but he nodded sagely as though he had. Is one for
Gerald?
You might say they re all for Gerald.
He watched me a while longer, then said, Why is it presents? Don t splosives hurt?
E s just havin a joke, Arlie said.
Bill sat quietly for a minute or so, his eyes tracking my fingers, and at last he said, Why won t you
talk to Gerald about the barnacles? You should tell him it s important.
Give it a rest, Billy, Arlie said, patting his arm.
What do you expect Gerald to do? I said. Even if he agreed with you, there s nothing to be
done.
Leave, he said. Like the barnacles.
What a marvelous idea! We ll just pick up and abandon the place.
No, no! he shrilled. CPC! CPC! [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl wyciskamy.pev.pl
Thanks for that, I said coldly.
Just don t ever change, man. Don t ever change.
The sleds that had lifted from the station had all disappeared, but others were materializing from the
blackness, tiny points of silver and light coming home from the assembly platforms, looking no more
substantial than the clouds of barnacles. Finally Gerald said, I got things to take care of. He waved at
the barnacles. Leave this shit alone, will you? After everything else gets settled, maybe then we ll look
into it. Right now all you doing is wasting my fucking time.
I watched him moving off along the curve of the module toward the airlock, feeling somewhat put off
by his brusque reaction and his analysis. I respected him a great deal as a professional, and his clinical
assessment of my abilities made me doubt that his respect for me was so unqualified.
There was a faint click against the side of my helmet. I reached up and plucked off a barnacle. Lying
in the palm of my gauntlet, its plates closed, its olive surface threaded with gold and crimson, it seemed
cryptic, magical, rare, like something one would find after a search lasting half a lifetime, a relic buried
with a wizard king, lying in his ribcage in place of a heart. I had shifted my position so that the light from
the port behind me cast my shadow over the surface, and, a neurological change having been triggered
by the shift in light intensity, some of the barnacles in the shadow were opening their plates and probing
the vacuum with stubby gray tongues, trying to feed. It was an uncanny sight, the way their tongues
moved, stiffly, jerkily, like bad animation, like creatures in a grotesque garden hallucinated by Hawthorne
or Baudelaire, and standing there among them, with the technological hodgepodge of the station
stretching away in every direction, I felt as if I were stranded in a pool of primitive time, looking out onto
the future. It was, I realized, a feeling akin to that I d had in London whenever I thought about the space
colonies, the outposts strung across the system.
Gnawing bones.
As my old Classics professor would have said, Gerald s metaphor was a happy choice.
And now I had time to consider, I realized that Gerald was right: After all the years on Solitaire, I
would be ill-suited for life in London, my instincts rusty, incapable of readjusting to the city s rabid
intensity. But I did not believe he was right to wait for Samuelson to move against us. Once the
Magnificence set their sights on a goal, they were not inclined to use half-measures. I was too disciplined
to break ranks with Gerald, but there was nothing to prevent me from preparing myself for the day of
judgment. Samuelson might bring us down, I told myself, but I would see to it that he would not outlive
us. I was not aware, however, that judgment day was almost at hand.
-=*=-
Perhaps it was the trouble of those days that brought Arlie and me closer together, that reawakened
us to the sweetness of our bodies and the sharp mesh of our souls, to all those things we had come to
take for granted. And perhaps Bill had something to do with it. As dismal an item as he was, it may be his
presence served -- as Arlie had suggested -- to supply us with some missing essential of warmth or heart.
But whatever the cause, it was a great good time for us, and I came once again to perceive her not
merely as someone who could cure a hurt or make me stop thinking for a while, but as the embodiment
of my hopes. After everything I had witnessed, all the shabby, bloody evidence I had been presented of
our kind s pettiness and greed, that I could feel anything so pure for another human being... Christ, it
astounded me! And if that much could happen, then why not the fulfillment of other, more improbable
hopes? For instance, suppose a ship were to return with news of a habitable world. I pictured the two of
us boarding, flying away, landing, being washed clean in the struggle of a stern and simple life.
Foolishness, I told myself. Wild ignorance. Yet each time I fell into bed with Arlie, though the darkness
that covered us seemed always imbued with a touch of black satin, with the sticky patina of the Strange
Magnificence, I would sense in the back of my mind that in touching her I was flying away again, and in
entering her I was making landfall on some perfect blue-green sphere. There came a night, however,
when to entertain such thoughts seemed not mere folly but the height of indulgence.
It was close upon half-eleven, and the three of us, Bill, Arlie, and I, were sitting in the living room, the
walls playing a holographic scenario of a white-capped sea and Alps of towering cumulus, with whales
breeching and a three-masted schooner coasting on the wind, vanishing whenever it reached the corner,
then reappearing on the adjoining wall. Bill and Arlie were on the sofa, and she was telling him stories
about Earth, lies about the wonderful animals that lived there, trying to distract him from his obsessive
nattering about the barnacles. I had just brought out several of the packet charges that Gerald and I had
hidden away, and I was working at reshaping them into smaller units, a project that had occupied me for
several nights. Bill had previously seemed frightened by them and had never mentioned them. That night,
however, he pointed at the charges and said, Splosives?
Very good, I said. The ones we found, you and I. The ones I was working with yesterday.
Remember?
Uh-huh. He watched me reinsert a timer into one of the charges and then asked what I was doing.
Making some presents, I told him.
Birthday presents?
More like Guy Fawkes Day presents.
He had no clue as to the identity of Guy Fawkes, but he nodded sagely as though he had. Is one for
Gerald?
You might say they re all for Gerald.
He watched me a while longer, then said, Why is it presents? Don t splosives hurt?
E s just havin a joke, Arlie said.
Bill sat quietly for a minute or so, his eyes tracking my fingers, and at last he said, Why won t you
talk to Gerald about the barnacles? You should tell him it s important.
Give it a rest, Billy, Arlie said, patting his arm.
What do you expect Gerald to do? I said. Even if he agreed with you, there s nothing to be
done.
Leave, he said. Like the barnacles.
What a marvelous idea! We ll just pick up and abandon the place.
No, no! he shrilled. CPC! CPC! [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]