[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
here?"
"Where can we discuss them?" she asked innocently.
"They could follow us anywhere they wanted and listen to us, maybe even read
Page 191
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
our minds. We're children here, very ill-educated children."
Lanier looked down at the milky translucent table between the couch and the
chair. "That makes sense. I really like the way this apartment is
decorated."
"Mine's nice, too."
"And how would they--the rooms, I presume know what we like?"
Her expression became conspiratorial. "Right," she said.
"I've asked the room voice and it just says, 'The rooms are made to suit."
Lanier leaned forward on the couch. "This whole place is incredible.
Unbelievable. Are we dreaming, Karen?"
She shook her head solemly.
"All right, then. Is Patricia dreaming she's found a way out, a way to go
back to Earth?"
"Oh, she doesn't want to go back to Earth the way it is now.
file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-%20Eon.txt (323 of 504) [1/17/03
7:20:23 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-%20Eon.txt
She says she can take us 'home,' whatever she means. And she's serious.
She'll explain later, she said."
"You're a physicist. Is what she says possible?"
"I'm just another child here, Garry. I don't know."
"What else did she say?"
"That's it. And . . ." She stood. 'I'll go.now. But I didn't just
. . . Oh." She clasped her arms around herself and looked at him.
"Not just to tell you what she said. To make sure you understood I
wasn't taking advantage."
"I understand."
"It's just, like you say, healthy, though I've been worried hadn't called it
healthy; she had, but he found the transference acceptable.
"Don't."
"Okay," Farley said..
He stood. "In fact . . ." His face flushed again. "I feel just like a
teenager whe.I . . . when you're here and we talk like this."
'i'm sorry," she said, her face falling.
"No, that's good. Until now, I've felt like a very old man, losing all my
marbles. I would enjoy it if you stayed with me She smiled, then abruptly
frowned. "I will enjoy that, and I will stay," she said.
"But it worries me about patricia."
"Yes?"
"She is now the only one of us sleeping alone."
file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-%20Eon.txt (324 of 504) [1/17/03
7:20:23 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-%20Eon.txt
Chapter Forty-eight Step by step, Patricia traced the progress of the curve
through five dimensions, watching it unfold like some nightmare staircase, one
part shadowing, one part a necessary negative of the primary curve. Her eyes
were closed so tightly they hurt, and her face was convulsed into an
expression between ecstasy and grief.
She had never known an intensity of thought like this, so deep an involvement
in her inner calculations. It frightened her. Even when she opened her eyes
to the twilight blueness of the ceiling and rolled over on her side, one hand
reaching into the emptiness beyond the bed-Even then, her finger traced a part
of the curve, a projected and living snake in the air. Clenching her fist,
she saw little spots of light gather along the path her finger had made. She
closed her eyes again.
And immediately slept, dreaming the curve. She was still half-aware in her
Page 192
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
sleep, and she watched from a distant vantage point as her brain continued,
though at a reduced level, the work she could not put a stop to.
Only a few hours later, she came instantly awake, realizing she needed to
reexamine her seminal article--the one she had yet to write, which she had
found in the third chamber library.
With some apprehension--the data service, in the four times she had resorted
to it, had not always provided what she needed she got out of the oval bed and
donned her lavender robe, tying the belt as she walked through the dimly lit
living room.
"Data, City Memory," she said. An annillary sphere appeared before her, its
bands glowing red and gold. Two circlets, one above the other and twice the
diameter, followed, a replacement for the antiquated question mark.
"Access to article by Patricia Luisa Vasquez . . . Oh, Lord, I've forgotten
the exact title and date. Do you need them?"
Complicated picts flashed until she deactivated them and requested spoken
language only. "Do you wish to see a complete list of the short works of
Patricia Luisa Vasquez?" the data service voice asked.
"Yes," she said, again touched by the prickling spookiness of what she was
doing.
Roman alphabet listings appeared before her as if on an extensive sheet of
white paper. About midway through the list appeared, Theory of n-Spatial
Geodesics as Applied to Newtonian Physics with a Special
Discourse on Rho-Simplon Worm Lines.
"That's it," she said. "Display."
She reread the paper carefully and drummed the fingers of her free hand on the
edge of the seat. "It's brilliant, she said grimly, "and it's wrong." It
might have been an influential paper, but it was obvious to her now that it
was an early and primitive work. "Please display the list again."
The service obliged and she picked out a later piece and requested that it be
displayed.
The old and familiar symbol of the spiked ball appeared.
"Interdicted," the voice said.
file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-%20Eon.txt (325 of 504) [1/17/03
7:20:23 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-%20Eon.txt
She chose another, feeling her anger rise. "Interdicted."
And another, toward the end of the list, written when she was--would be about
eighty-eight. "Interdicted."
"Why are my papers interdicted?" she asked angrily.
The spiked ball was the only reply.
"Why is this service being censored?" She suddenly experienced the
neck-itching realization she was no longer alone in the room.
"Olmy? Lights up." The room brightened.
No answer.
She stood up and looked around slowly, her whole back Umsing.
Then she saw the intruder, hovering near the ceiling, a gray bmeba!I-sized
roundness with a face in the middle. For a moment, she did nothing but return
the face's scrutiny. It file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-%20Eon.txt
(326 of 504) [1/17/03 7:20:23 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-%20Eon.txt seemed masculine, with
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]