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having the opportunity to discover. But that doesn't mean it has to be dull
boring. Each of us is here for a comparative instant and then we are gone.
The universe doesn't notice us when we're here and certainly doesn't miss us
when we're gone. We're all nothing but unified arrangements of atoms and
particles, drifting around, enjoying consciousness every now and then for a
second or so before splitting up to become bits and pieces of trees and stars
and french fries.
"As long as we're not transformed into energy, those of us who are companion
particles continue drifting through the cosmos, enjoying a kind of fragmented
immortality, one with the everything. When you clump together, more or less
accidentally, it might be as part of a rock or another person."
"Or a french fry," said Seeth as he finished the last of Miranda's
fat-saturated hoard.
"Somehow, that's not what I think of when I consider the possibility of
reincarnation," Kerwin muttered uneasily.
"I'm not talking about reincarnation," Rail said. "I'm talking about what your
component atoms become part of when you cease to exist as an intelligent
being."
"Hey, he did that when he turned six," Seeth put in.
"Blow it out your ear." Kerwin turned, disconsolate, and walked to the back of
the room. Strapping the food synthesizer sensor around his head, he defiantly
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ordered a banana split.
Rail glanced back and smiled approvingly. "Now you're beginning to get the
idea."
Kerwin dug into the mountainous concoction with blind enthusiasm, relishing
every cool, gooey swallow. Even the bananas tasted fresh. He wondered at the
sophistication and skill of a civilization that could synthesize something as
complex as a banana split simply on the basis of his thoughts. But then, maybe
compared to faster-than-light travel it wasn't so difficult after all.
"You might want to balance yourselves, please," Rail told them. Kerwin
frantically tried to gulp down the last of the ice cream as he stumbled back
toward his seat. "We're slowing to sublight speed. At least, I hope we are.
Be-cause of the damage we incurred while fleeing the Oomemian ships, we might
have a problem or two."
"Like what?" Kerwin asked uncertainly.
"Well, when we emerge from the threshold we could possibly break up. For real
this time."
Seeth began humming nonchalantly, "Breaking up is hard to doooo!"
*6*
Kerwin found himself moaning softly, finally couldn't stand it anymore. "Will
you shut up! Didn't you hear what he said? We could all die." His fingers
tightened on the sides of the lounge seat.
"Nonsense." Miranda followed this completely confi-dent assertion with a very
loud belch, looked embarrassed, and added, "We're not going to die."
"Why not? How can you be so sure?"
She smiled over at him, radiantly beautiful, save per-haps for the slight
ketchup smear dribbling from the left corner of her sensuous mouth.
"Because I'm not ready to yet."
At which point the universe turned upside down. When it and Kerwin's stomach
had righted themselves once more, the view out the port was dominated not by
empty space but by the blue, white and brown of an inhabitable world. You
didn't need a degree in astronomy to ascertain imme-diately that it wasn't
Earth. The triple polar ring system, thicker than that of Uranus, was evidence
enough of that.
Just as he was starting to relax, the ship spun wildly. He closed his eyes and
swallowed, listening as Rail shouted a string of alien obscenities into an
audio pickup. More surprisingly, a hidden speaker filled the room with a
reply. The tone and words were utterly unintelligible to Kerwin. It sounded
more like a buzz saw than a voice.
This exchange of interspecies insults rose briefly in volume before halting
completely.
"We're here. We've made it," Rail informed them.
"Where's 'here'?"
"Nedsplen. A neutral world and a most successful and prosperous one. A
pleasant place for those who live here as well as for the harried traveler.
You should find the atmosphere and gravity to your liking. A very commercial
people, the Nedsplenites. Their world is something of a crossroads for this
section of the galaxy. As it's a logical place for us to visit, we should be
on the lookout for Oomemian observers. Still, it's so busy and active and
crowded that, with any luck, we will be able to lose ourselves for a while."
Kerwin tried to melt into his seat. The surface was rushing toward them at
breakneck speed.
"No point in heading for one of the suburban ports." Rail seemed awfully
casual about making an approach. "As long as we've come to an obvious world,
we might as well land in the most obvious place."
Much to Kerwin's relief, they finally leveled off, skim-ming a long, shallow
sea that formed an enormous harbor or inlet. Then they were flying over
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forests and agricul-tural regions and, soon after, an endless metropolitan
area in which buildings and structures looked like the sucked-out carcasses of
insects caught in the spider's web of transportation lines.
"The capital city of Nedsplen," Rail informed them. "Alvin."
Kerwin frowned. "The capital city of this important world is called Alvin?"
"What did you expect? Imperial Realm? Seat of Power?"
"I don't know. I just thought it probably means some-thing important in the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]