[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Waxman now. Only Chris seems to be horrified that someone will read his mind."
Time enough to mention the bad stuff later. He watches her glow and stretch
her new body, becoming more fully awake. She must be in that state of dreamy
euphoria that seems to attend waking up oh Tyree. Come to think of it, he's
still in it himself.
"Now who's this, do you know?" He floats over to the body lying close by big
Omar's protective field. It has to be a much younger person; the mantle is
short, the vanes half-grown. Protruding from the central membranes are a set
of strong-looking claspers. Do Tyrenni children make much more use of their
manipulative limbs? A section of pouch is exposed too, this must be a male
child, one of the children he had seen carried up and away. He remembers to
look at the life-aura; it seems to be sizable, cautiously eddying out. But
odd, lop-sided.
"I dreamed something," Val is saying, "before I got so scared. But then I
went to sleep. They do that, don't they?"
"Yes. It's their way of fixing up fear and bad feelings."
"How wonderful!" She stretches again, laughs gaily. "Don't worry about what
happened, you know. Oh, I feel so free!" She makes an experimental caracole
above the plants, lifts all her vanes. "Free and strong why, I
could go miles and miles, couldn't I? Anywhere in the sky!"
"That's right. As a matter of fact, on this world the females seem to do
all the traveling and exploring while the males tend the kids."
"Oh, wow!" Then she sobers. "But we should wake up whoever this is."
They hover together over the quiet form. Dann notices again the peculiar
tight-held formation of parts of its life-energies. Another frightened one
like Costakis?
Suddenly the dark, mantle lights concisely.
"Don't bother," says the voice of Fredericka Crespinelli. "Are you all right,
Val?"
"Frodo! I dreamed, I was sure you were here."
"I heard you. Hello, Doc."
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"Hello Frodo. Have you been awake long?"
"Awhile. Listen, what in the name of the Abyss now why did I say that?
What did they do to me?" The words glimmer with the tinge of fear.
"Don't be scared, Frodo," Val says loftily. "They didn't do anything, to your
mind, it's just that you can say what they have words for. I figured that out
right away."
"All right." Dann can see she is much more disturbed than Val. "What are we
here for, Doc? What's going on?"
To distract her he says the first thing that comes into his head.
"Well, for one thing you're a young male now. Your body, I mean. A boy, like
twelve or fifteen I'd guess."
"Who, me?"
She twists in midair, trying to see all of herself at once, and succeeds in
blowing into a tangle of vanes and vines. Val laughs merrily, trying to help,
but there seems to be no easy way of physical assistance in this world.
Frodo finally jets free.
"When you grow up you'll be like that enormous old chap up there. He's a
Father, that's the highest rank here." Grinning to himself, Dann can't resist
adding, "As a male your main job will be raising babies. It's the high-status
thing here. The females like Val aren't allowed to touch them."
"What?!" The rainbow-hued exclamations end in delicious laughter.
Dann joins in. Enjoy while we can, the absurd delight in the magical winds of
Tyree. The others are experimentally flying barrel-rolls.
"Wait a minute, you two. I suggest you learn more about this world before you
make the mistakes I did. The way you do it is to ask someone
for a memory."
"A memory?"
"The most amazing teaching method you ever saw. Wait. Father Omar!"
he calls. "May I present Valerie and Frodo, two former females of my world?
They would like to be given a memory, but we are ignorant of the correct way
to receive. Would you instruct them?"
"Very well," the old being replies, and a sad sigh gleams on his sides.
"Perhaps I too will ask a memory of your world, since my Janskelen has gone
there."
"Now you'll be fine," Dann tells them. "Just do what he says and you'll be
astounded. I'm going to check on the others. Maybe I can bring back my friend
to meet you, a real young female of Tyree."
... And so it had gone, a dreamlike happiness in the high beauty of the
Wall. But then another fireball had crashed close, and started a precipitous
exodus down, and down again.
Tivonel will not stray far from Lomax and the old Hearer stays bravely above
the rest, still reaching his mind to the sky.
Dann feels duty-bound to stay near, since he has Giadoc's body;
privately he is sure all this is futile. Meantime his human friends are one by
one beginning to feel the burning in the wind.
"Chris, will you take charge? Make them get under what shelter they can and
get them lower down the Wall. I have to stay by the Hearers because the person
who owns my body may be trying to come back."
"You leaving us, Doc?'
"I doubt it. I even doubt I want to, believe it or not."
Suddenly Costakis displays an unChrislike opalescent laugh; a true laugh of
human acceptance.
"I believe you, Doc."
He planes off down the wind, to round up Winona's group. Costakis
"believes"? Dan has a momentary realization of what sheer size and strength
has done for Chris. The simple fact of presence that he himself unthinkingly
enjoyed so long. To be listened to, to have no need to strive.
It is in fact Chris who gives them concrete help.
Page 125
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He presently reappears by Dann and Heagran, towing a thorny-looking
bundle of plant-life.
"Doc, I've been looking around. This stuff must have some, what's the word,
hard matter in it, it blocks off the energy pretty well. You know, the
sky-sound. If we make a big raft of it we'd have a shelter from the burning.
Trouble is, I've got everything but, uh, manipulators."
He flaps his mantle, wiggling his weak claspers as if to say, "No hands."
Several nearby Fathers color embarrassedly.
"What are you doing with that frikkon-weed?" Tivonel jets up. "That's awful
stuff, it tears your vanes."
"Yeah, but it'll stick together without weaving," Chris replies. "You have
that long vine, too. We can throw lines over the mats to hold them down by.
Doc, these people ought to make some for themselves if they want to last much
longer. Tell them." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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Waxman now. Only Chris seems to be horrified that someone will read his mind."
Time enough to mention the bad stuff later. He watches her glow and stretch
her new body, becoming more fully awake. She must be in that state of dreamy
euphoria that seems to attend waking up oh Tyree. Come to think of it, he's
still in it himself.
"Now who's this, do you know?" He floats over to the body lying close by big
Omar's protective field. It has to be a much younger person; the mantle is
short, the vanes half-grown. Protruding from the central membranes are a set
of strong-looking claspers. Do Tyrenni children make much more use of their
manipulative limbs? A section of pouch is exposed too, this must be a male
child, one of the children he had seen carried up and away. He remembers to
look at the life-aura; it seems to be sizable, cautiously eddying out. But
odd, lop-sided.
"I dreamed something," Val is saying, "before I got so scared. But then I
went to sleep. They do that, don't they?"
"Yes. It's their way of fixing up fear and bad feelings."
"How wonderful!" She stretches again, laughs gaily. "Don't worry about what
happened, you know. Oh, I feel so free!" She makes an experimental caracole
above the plants, lifts all her vanes. "Free and strong why, I
could go miles and miles, couldn't I? Anywhere in the sky!"
"That's right. As a matter of fact, on this world the females seem to do
all the traveling and exploring while the males tend the kids."
"Oh, wow!" Then she sobers. "But we should wake up whoever this is."
They hover together over the quiet form. Dann notices again the peculiar
tight-held formation of parts of its life-energies. Another frightened one
like Costakis?
Suddenly the dark, mantle lights concisely.
"Don't bother," says the voice of Fredericka Crespinelli. "Are you all right,
Val?"
"Frodo! I dreamed, I was sure you were here."
"I heard you. Hello, Doc."
Page 124
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"Hello Frodo. Have you been awake long?"
"Awhile. Listen, what in the name of the Abyss now why did I say that?
What did they do to me?" The words glimmer with the tinge of fear.
"Don't be scared, Frodo," Val says loftily. "They didn't do anything, to your
mind, it's just that you can say what they have words for. I figured that out
right away."
"All right." Dann can see she is much more disturbed than Val. "What are we
here for, Doc? What's going on?"
To distract her he says the first thing that comes into his head.
"Well, for one thing you're a young male now. Your body, I mean. A boy, like
twelve or fifteen I'd guess."
"Who, me?"
She twists in midair, trying to see all of herself at once, and succeeds in
blowing into a tangle of vanes and vines. Val laughs merrily, trying to help,
but there seems to be no easy way of physical assistance in this world.
Frodo finally jets free.
"When you grow up you'll be like that enormous old chap up there. He's a
Father, that's the highest rank here." Grinning to himself, Dann can't resist
adding, "As a male your main job will be raising babies. It's the high-status
thing here. The females like Val aren't allowed to touch them."
"What?!" The rainbow-hued exclamations end in delicious laughter.
Dann joins in. Enjoy while we can, the absurd delight in the magical winds of
Tyree. The others are experimentally flying barrel-rolls.
"Wait a minute, you two. I suggest you learn more about this world before you
make the mistakes I did. The way you do it is to ask someone
for a memory."
"A memory?"
"The most amazing teaching method you ever saw. Wait. Father Omar!"
he calls. "May I present Valerie and Frodo, two former females of my world?
They would like to be given a memory, but we are ignorant of the correct way
to receive. Would you instruct them?"
"Very well," the old being replies, and a sad sigh gleams on his sides.
"Perhaps I too will ask a memory of your world, since my Janskelen has gone
there."
"Now you'll be fine," Dann tells them. "Just do what he says and you'll be
astounded. I'm going to check on the others. Maybe I can bring back my friend
to meet you, a real young female of Tyree."
... And so it had gone, a dreamlike happiness in the high beauty of the
Wall. But then another fireball had crashed close, and started a precipitous
exodus down, and down again.
Tivonel will not stray far from Lomax and the old Hearer stays bravely above
the rest, still reaching his mind to the sky.
Dann feels duty-bound to stay near, since he has Giadoc's body;
privately he is sure all this is futile. Meantime his human friends are one by
one beginning to feel the burning in the wind.
"Chris, will you take charge? Make them get under what shelter they can and
get them lower down the Wall. I have to stay by the Hearers because the person
who owns my body may be trying to come back."
"You leaving us, Doc?'
"I doubt it. I even doubt I want to, believe it or not."
Suddenly Costakis displays an unChrislike opalescent laugh; a true laugh of
human acceptance.
"I believe you, Doc."
He planes off down the wind, to round up Winona's group. Costakis
"believes"? Dan has a momentary realization of what sheer size and strength
has done for Chris. The simple fact of presence that he himself unthinkingly
enjoyed so long. To be listened to, to have no need to strive.
It is in fact Chris who gives them concrete help.
Page 125
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
He presently reappears by Dann and Heagran, towing a thorny-looking
bundle of plant-life.
"Doc, I've been looking around. This stuff must have some, what's the word,
hard matter in it, it blocks off the energy pretty well. You know, the
sky-sound. If we make a big raft of it we'd have a shelter from the burning.
Trouble is, I've got everything but, uh, manipulators."
He flaps his mantle, wiggling his weak claspers as if to say, "No hands."
Several nearby Fathers color embarrassedly.
"What are you doing with that frikkon-weed?" Tivonel jets up. "That's awful
stuff, it tears your vanes."
"Yeah, but it'll stick together without weaving," Chris replies. "You have
that long vine, too. We can throw lines over the mats to hold them down by.
Doc, these people ought to make some for themselves if they want to last much
longer. Tell them." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]