[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

I stumbled along the staticstrip, back toward the parking lot. I
passed the foyer of a building where a public video screen
displayed its panorama of violence from the pickup cameras
above the Reactions building. But I only turned my head. I didn't
want to know how the battle was progressing.
A half block from the parking lot I drew up hesitatingly in front of
a Psychorama. I stared almost unseeingly at its display posters,
which boasted of the current appearance of "The Foremost
Abstract Poetrycaster of Our Times Ragir Rojasta."
A uniformed attendant appealed to the passing pedistrippers,
"Come on in, folks. Matinee performance just starting."
My mind was a labyrinth of tortuous, terrified thought. It was
halted on a dead-center of stark despair. I had to find some way
to clear it so I could decide what to do next if anything. There
was no sense in running. For there was no place to hide. I could
be empathy coupled or deprogramed anywhere. So I paid my
admission and tottered through the foyer.
I took the first empty place I could find in the circular tiers of
seats and let my eyes focus indifferently on the central, revolving
dais.
Ragir Rojasta sat there, resplendent in his oriental robes and
turban, his arms folded, as the rotation of the stage sent his
trancelike stare sweeping across the audience. The play of soft
lights against his tawny, severe features presented a soothing
contrast that invited me to don the Participation Skullcap.
Simulacron Three 124
I didn't have to close my eyes to be swept into the essence of
Rojasta's conceptualized poetry. Instantly superimposed upon
my own field of vision was a great flowing procession of the most
dazzling jewels I had ever seen. Rubies and sapphires,
diamonds and pearls tumbled over one another, their
coruscating beauty blinding even my electrotelepathic
appreciation of their elegance.
Against a hazy background of shifting sand and crawling marine
life, they sent their brilliant reflections out to strike vivid
illumination into murky depths. Then, like the gaping maw of an
enormous seadragon, a vacuous hole opened in the ebon
distance. And in its depths sparkled the most lustrous gem
imaginable.
All around me, as though I weren't in a Psychorama at all, I could
feel the wetness of water, the loneliness of desolate, submarine
depths, the awful crush of despair and hydrostatic pressure.
Then came the violent, lurching transition from wetness to
blistering dryness, from the suffocating loneliness of
unfathomable reaches to the choking aridity of a vast stretch of
wasteland.
The only concept that had held its stability during the change had
been the incomparable gem. Only, now it, too, was
metamorphosing into a delicate, many-petaled crimson
blossom that gave off a poignant redolence.
So hypnotic was Rojasta's projection that I had been sucked
irresistibly into the spirit of the reading. And I could now
recognize the excerpt:
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark, unfathom'd caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Gray's Elegy, of course.
Now we were looking down on the profuse vegetation flanking
one of the Martian canals. The waters roialed with the restless
presence of thousands of
Simulacron Three 125
There was a jarring end to the poetrycast as the main lights
came up in the Psychorama. A four-sided video screen dropped
down to envelop Rojasta and each facet immediately came to life
with a picture of the activity outside Reactions, Inc.
Some semblance of order was being restored. The monitors
were falling back before the crippling spray from a score of
heavy lasers which had been set up on top of the building.
Federal troops had moved in. They were swarming on the roof.
They were dropping down by the hundreds in Army vans.
ARM had lost.
The Operator had lost.
The Upper World had failed in its last desperate attempt to
destroy Fuller's simulator within the bounds of rational expedient.
The Operator couldn't preserve His response-seeking system
our reaction monitors establishment.
I knew what it meant.
This entire world would have to be wiped clean so a new
behavior-predicting simulectronic complex could be programed.
I lowered the now dead Participation Skullcap from my head and
merely sat there wondering when it would come. Would universal
deprograming be effected immediately? Or would the Operator
first have to consult a special advisory group, a board of
directors?
At least, I consoled myself, I didn't have to worry any longer
about being yanked individually, or even being scrutinized [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

  • zanotowane.pl
  • doc.pisz.pl
  • pdf.pisz.pl
  • thierry.pev.pl

    •