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.Here andthere cables reached toward the "sky."There was a sudden change in the texture of the objects they were seeing and Sealock looked backtoward Methol and Krzakwa.They were gazing about.He shifted his suit optics from microwave tovisible light and the vast chamber was bathed in blue-green radiance."Looks like you got the lights turnedon." They turned and walked back toward the dais."That was an easy one," said Ariane."At least I think I did it.It happened about twenty seconds after Itouched this node.Do you think I should touch it again to see if they go off?""Sure," said Jana.Nothing happened."We seem to have established that they don't believe in toggle buttons," said Tem."Try this one next toit," he said, reaching out to touch one of the dark spots.As he did so, something huge began to move inthe distance.A sea of cables shimmered, where before there had been nothing, and beneath them theunknown machine glided a small distance and stopped.Sealock smiled grimly."Be a hell of a note if weaccidentally turned on the rocket engines, wouldn't it?"Watching without expression, Hu said, "It would be interesting to discover that they still worked, thatthey still had fuel.And that a fuel would indeed still be potent.Most that I know work by the release ofstored entropy.and time will have its effect."They touched other buttons, which made other objects move, and Sealock was struck by a suddenanalogy: they were like small children, playing with the controls to an older child's complex toy system.Itdid things that they were too young to understand.They couldn't see the real relationshipbetween causeand effect.And any theories that they may have formed were neither enforced nor disproved.Harmon Prynne sat in his cubicle in Deepstar's CM, alone, as he had been, now, seemingly for solong.And Vana.she was under the wire again with that God damned fagwog ! The black anger builtin him and he wanted to rage, to smash things, destroy them.He wanted to throw things, hurl themagainst the walls of his room, but in this low-g environment they would only ricochet around inanely,making him want to laugh when he needed to cry.He chewed his knuckles in frustration and stared hardat nothing.Why did it have to happen this way?I'm alone again, he thought, and remembered endless nights he had spent alone as a younger man,when he lived in his ancestral Key West Monad.He'd never fitted in there, or in any of the other placeshe'd tried to live he'd always been an outsider, cut off in the midst of his own culture.unable to joinin the simple, joyous games of the other adolescents.If it is difficult to be strange, how much moredifficult can it be to be strange and stupid? He couldn't fit in with their impersonal ideas about human relationships, the ideas about absolutefreedom within the restrictive framework of the Monad.He needed someone, and needed that person toneed him.When he went to Montevideo in the pursuit of his career, when he met Vana Berenguer and loved her.he'd tried so hard to make it work, and now she was slowly being taken from him.He wanted to killthem, or himself.He wanted all life to come to an end.Oh, hell.He couldn't think which way to turn.He didn't know what to do.Maybe when the USEC ship came,he could get away.Having exhausted their patience in playing with the alien control panel, the four explorers had walkedback to the edge of the platform and, in keeping with the topsy-turvy nature of the place, continued towalk down the side to the thing's base.Before the omnipresent lighting came on, this place had beenburied in the shadows, but now that they could seeit well they discovered that there was nothing to see.Around them were virtually featureless blue-green rhomboids of various sizes lacking even the circleswhich allowed one the luxury of imagining that the thing was at least marginally understandable.Alleyways strung with occasional cables led in all directions.Finally they came to an attach point for oneof the cables, and Ariane climbed up to it and said, "I wonder what it was for? It seems to go just abouteverywhere." The surface of the thing had a strange oily sheen, a faint coruscation of colors that gavethe illusion of movement.She reached out to touch it."You know, it has the same force field that we'vefound on all the flat interior surfaces." She encircled the ten-centimeter-thick cable with her fingers and letthem slowly clamp down."I wonder if they're all really continuous with each othAAAAaaaa." Thescream was a trailing diminuendo, for as soon as her fingers made contact with it she was jerked off herfeet and sucked away on the cable, manifestly under rapid acceleration.Sealock cursed and, throwing himself on the thing, was sucked away in his turn.The other two,unwilling to be left behind, followed suit.Obligingly, the device brought those behind up at a faster paceuntil they were traveling in a little cluster, like dried raisins on a bare stem."Well," said Brendan, "I guess we know what it does now."Ariane laughed weakly."This is a novel sort of transportation device [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Here andthere cables reached toward the "sky."There was a sudden change in the texture of the objects they were seeing and Sealock looked backtoward Methol and Krzakwa.They were gazing about.He shifted his suit optics from microwave tovisible light and the vast chamber was bathed in blue-green radiance."Looks like you got the lights turnedon." They turned and walked back toward the dais."That was an easy one," said Ariane."At least I think I did it.It happened about twenty seconds after Itouched this node.Do you think I should touch it again to see if they go off?""Sure," said Jana.Nothing happened."We seem to have established that they don't believe in toggle buttons," said Tem."Try this one next toit," he said, reaching out to touch one of the dark spots.As he did so, something huge began to move inthe distance.A sea of cables shimmered, where before there had been nothing, and beneath them theunknown machine glided a small distance and stopped.Sealock smiled grimly."Be a hell of a note if weaccidentally turned on the rocket engines, wouldn't it?"Watching without expression, Hu said, "It would be interesting to discover that they still worked, thatthey still had fuel.And that a fuel would indeed still be potent.Most that I know work by the release ofstored entropy.and time will have its effect."They touched other buttons, which made other objects move, and Sealock was struck by a suddenanalogy: they were like small children, playing with the controls to an older child's complex toy system.Itdid things that they were too young to understand.They couldn't see the real relationshipbetween causeand effect.And any theories that they may have formed were neither enforced nor disproved.Harmon Prynne sat in his cubicle in Deepstar's CM, alone, as he had been, now, seemingly for solong.And Vana.she was under the wire again with that God damned fagwog ! The black anger builtin him and he wanted to rage, to smash things, destroy them.He wanted to throw things, hurl themagainst the walls of his room, but in this low-g environment they would only ricochet around inanely,making him want to laugh when he needed to cry.He chewed his knuckles in frustration and stared hardat nothing.Why did it have to happen this way?I'm alone again, he thought, and remembered endless nights he had spent alone as a younger man,when he lived in his ancestral Key West Monad.He'd never fitted in there, or in any of the other placeshe'd tried to live he'd always been an outsider, cut off in the midst of his own culture.unable to joinin the simple, joyous games of the other adolescents.If it is difficult to be strange, how much moredifficult can it be to be strange and stupid? He couldn't fit in with their impersonal ideas about human relationships, the ideas about absolutefreedom within the restrictive framework of the Monad.He needed someone, and needed that person toneed him.When he went to Montevideo in the pursuit of his career, when he met Vana Berenguer and loved her.he'd tried so hard to make it work, and now she was slowly being taken from him.He wanted to killthem, or himself.He wanted all life to come to an end.Oh, hell.He couldn't think which way to turn.He didn't know what to do.Maybe when the USEC ship came,he could get away.Having exhausted their patience in playing with the alien control panel, the four explorers had walkedback to the edge of the platform and, in keeping with the topsy-turvy nature of the place, continued towalk down the side to the thing's base.Before the omnipresent lighting came on, this place had beenburied in the shadows, but now that they could seeit well they discovered that there was nothing to see.Around them were virtually featureless blue-green rhomboids of various sizes lacking even the circleswhich allowed one the luxury of imagining that the thing was at least marginally understandable.Alleyways strung with occasional cables led in all directions.Finally they came to an attach point for oneof the cables, and Ariane climbed up to it and said, "I wonder what it was for? It seems to go just abouteverywhere." The surface of the thing had a strange oily sheen, a faint coruscation of colors that gavethe illusion of movement.She reached out to touch it."You know, it has the same force field that we'vefound on all the flat interior surfaces." She encircled the ten-centimeter-thick cable with her fingers and letthem slowly clamp down."I wonder if they're all really continuous with each othAAAAaaaa." Thescream was a trailing diminuendo, for as soon as her fingers made contact with it she was jerked off herfeet and sucked away on the cable, manifestly under rapid acceleration.Sealock cursed and, throwing himself on the thing, was sucked away in his turn.The other two,unwilling to be left behind, followed suit.Obligingly, the device brought those behind up at a faster paceuntil they were traveling in a little cluster, like dried raisins on a bare stem."Well," said Brendan, "I guess we know what it does now."Ariane laughed weakly."This is a novel sort of transportation device [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]