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ever-present thoughtrider. ("You're mistaking inertia for ennui. You haven't exhausted
your possibilities; in fact, you've hardly dented them. You adapted well for a full
millennium. It's only in the last one hundred fifty years or so that you've begun to
crack.")
Right again, Dalt thought. Perhaps it had been the end of the horrors that had
precipitated the present situation. In retrospect, The Healer episodes, for all the strain
they subjected him to, had been high points while they lasted crests between shallow
troughs. Now he felt becalmed at sea, surrounded by featureless horizons.
("You should be vitally interested in what is happening to your race, because you,
unlike those around you today, will be there when civilization deteriorates into
feudalism. But nothing moves you. The rough beast of barbarism is rattling the cage of
civilization and all you can do is stifle a yawn.")
You certainly are in a poetic mood today. But barbarians, like the poor, are always with us.
("Granted. But they aren't in charge at least they haven't been to date. Tell me:
Would you like to see a Federation modeled on the Kwashi culture?")
Dalt found that a jolting vision but replied instead, I wish you were back on Kwashi! He
instantly regretted the remark. It was childish and unworthy of him and further
confirmed the deterioration of his mental state.
("If I'd stayed there, you'd be over a thousand years dead by now.")
"Maybe I'd be happier!" he retorted angrily. There was a tearing sound to his right as
the armrest of his recliner ripped loose in his hand.
How'd I do this? he asked.
("What?")
How'd I tear this loose with my bare hand?
("Oh, that. Well, I made some changes a while back in the way the actin and myocin
filaments in your striated muscle handle ATP. Human muscle is hardly optimum in that
respect. Your maximum muscle tension is far above normal now. Of course after doing
that, I had to strengthen the cross-bridge between the filaments, reinforce the tendinous
origins and insertions of the muscles, and then toughen up the joint capsules. It also
seemed wise to increase the epidermal keratin to prevent ...")
Pard paused as Dalt carelessly flipped the ruined armrest onto the cabin floor. In the
old days Pard would have received a lecture on the possible dangers of meddling with
his host's physiology. Now Dalt didn't seem to care.
("You seriously worry me, Dalt. Making yourself miserable ... it's unpleasant, but
your emotional life is your own affair. I must warn you, however: If you take any action
that threatens our physical life, I'll take steps to preserve it with or without your
consent.")
Go away, parasite, Dalt thought sulkily, and let me nap.
("I resent your inference. I've more than earned my keep in this relationship. It
becomes a perplexing question as to who is really the parasite at this point.")
Dalt made no reply.
Dalt awoke with Clutch looming larger and larger below him as the tourer eased
through the atmosphere toward the sea. Amid clouds of steam it plunged into the water
and then bobbed to the surface to rest on its belly. A pilot craft surfaced beside it, locked
onto the hull, and, as the tourer took on water for ballast, guided it below the surface to
its berth on the bottom.
The tube car deposited him on the beach a short time later and he strolled slowly in
the general direction of his flitter. The sun had already completed about a third of its arc
across the sky and the air lay warm and quiet and mistily opaque over the coast. Bathers
and sunsoakers were out in force.
He paused to watch a little sun-browned, towheaded boy digging in the sand. For
how many ages had little boys done that? He knew he must have done the same during
his boyhood on Friendly. How long ago was that? Twelve hundred years? It seemed like
twelve thousand. He felt as if he had never been young.
He wondered idly if he had made a mistake in refusing to have children and knew
immediately that he hadn't. Watching the women he had loved grow old and die had
been hard enough; watching his children do the same would have been more than he
could have tolerated.
Pard intruded again, this time with a definite tone of urgency. ("Something's
happening!")
What're you talking about?
("Don't know for sure, but there's a mammoth psi force suddenly operating nearby.")
A slight breeze began to stir and Dalt glanced up from the boy as he heard excited
voices down by the water. The mist in the air was starting to move, being drawn to a
point about a meter from the water's edge. A gray, vortical disk appeared, coin-sized at
first, then persistently larger. As it grew in size, the breeze graduated to a wind. By the
time the disk reached a diameter equal to a man's height, it was sucking in mist and
spray at gale force.
Curious, the little boy stood up and began to walk toward the disk, but Dalt put a
hand on his shoulder and gently pulled him back.
"Into your sand hole, little man," he told him. "I don't like the looks of this."
The boy's blue eyes looked up at him questioningly but something in Dalt's tone
made him turn and crawl back into his excavation.
Dalt returned his attention to the disk. Something about it raised his hackles and he
squatted on his haunches to see what would develop. It had stopped growing now and
a number of people, bracing themselves against the draw of the gale, formed a
semicircular cluster around it at a respectful distance.
Then, as if passing through a solid wall, a vacuum-suited figure with a blazing [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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