[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

which did not after its expression, but gazed steadily back at me.
It was a moment outside of time. We were caught together in a tableau, flies
in amber both of us, frozen and incapable of movement-except for that gun-hand
of mine which continued to move with a life of its own, closing about the gun
butt and lifting it to dear the muzrie toward the face before me. There was
something inevitable about its movements. I could have felt no more trapped by
circumstances if I had been tied down in die path of a juggernaut
In a second it would have been over-but in that second, the Old Man reached
out and placed a hand on both my shirt and the hand holding the gun, arresting
my movement.
The pressure of his hand was a calm, almost a gentle touch. I could feel the
unexerted strength behind his fingers; but he was not gripping my hand, merely
laying his own on top of it, just as, once, I might have stopped some business
guest reaching for the check of a lunch to which! had just taken him. It was
not the kind of touch mat could have checked me from continuing to draw the
gun and shoot him if I had decided to. But somehow, I was stopped.
For the first time I looked directly into-deeply into- those eyes of his.
I had gone to zoos once and looked into the eyes of some of the annuals there.
There were no more zoos now, nor was it fikely mat there would ever be again.
But once mere had been;.and in then- cages, particularly in the cages of the
big cats, the apes, and bears and the wolves, I had looked into wild animal
eyes from only a few feet of distance. And mere had seen something in those
eyes that was not to be found in the eyes of my fellow humans. There were eyes
that looked at me from the other side of the universe. Perhaps they could be
loving, perhaps, under stress, they could be fined with fury and anger; but
now, to me, a human, they were remote- separated from me by a gulf neither man
nor beast could cross. They looked at me, without judgment and without tope.
If they lived and it was men- fate to encounter me in the open, they would
deal with me as best their strength allowed. If I died they would watch me
die, simply because there was nothing else they could do, whether I was their
deepest enemy or their dearest friend. Their eyes were the eyes of creatures
locked up alone m then-own individual skuUs an the hours and minutes of
then-life. As animals they neither knew nor expected the communication every
human takes for granted, evea if he or she is surrounded by mortal foes.
The eyes of the Old Man were like that-they were the fettered eyes of an
animal But mixed in with mat, were was something more-for me alone. It was not
Page 130
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
love such as Sunday, had had for me. But it was something hi its own way,
perhaps, as strong. I recognized it without being able to put a name to
it-although suddenly, I knew what it was.
The Old Mao and his tribe, who had been born from test tubes, had been created
on the brink of humanity. They teetered on the nice edge of having souls. Of
these, the most aware was the Alpha Prime, Old Man himself, because he was the
most intelligent, the strongest and the most questioning. Also, he had shared
the monad with me in that moment in which we had brought the local effects of
the time storm to a halt In fact, he had shared it alone with me, before any
of the other humans had joined in. He had been exposed then to communication
for the first time hi his life; and it must have awakened a terrible hunger in
him. I realized mat, all this time, he had been trying to get back into
communication with me.
So, that is why as soon as he had been let free again- whenever that was-be
had begun to search me out, to approach me little by little, day by day, until
now, at last, he sat an arm's length from me. He not only sat at arm's length
from me, but with bis hand in a gesture that was almost pleading, arresting
the gun with which he must know I had planned to kill him. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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

    •