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example of the cybercosm a few humans and their organizations were beginning to. Or was it due to
the possibility of personal immortality?
And then: Profits? What exactly do I mean by that? Blanked if I know. When everybody's got enough
with-out working for it, and when by working, you really only add some luxuries to your life, what is
profit, anyway?
Power? The strength to break out of the system? But who in his right mind wants to? All I want is to be
free to go where I want.
Some old, old lines rose in his memory. Once on Mars, as they stood overlooking a light-and-shadow
grandeur of mountains, Kinna had spoken them for him, her trans-lation:
We travel not for trafficking alone;
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned: For lust of knowing what should not be known,
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.
But what if that freedom required cracking the system open?
They wish to encounter you in person, am I right?'' Stellarosa was saying. "Telepresence isn't quite the
same thing, not when you may be dealing with somebody for many years and it's this important."
Fenn generally responded gladly to an intelligent re-mark, whenever he heard one out of the dismal
average for his species. "Right. We organics use too many subtle cues." He noticed the slight
contempt or hostility, or whatever it was in his tone, and paused to think. He didn't care to sound like
a back-to-a-nature-that-never-was snotbrain. But at the same time, flip it, he wasn't about to accept that
the Teramind was his All-Mother and the whole end purpose of evolution. "As long as we keep on being
what we are," he finished.
"Then you hope they will invest in your project?" Stellarosa asked.
"Eventually," he replied. "I told you, this is all ten-tative so far. We'll need Earthside investors too. And
the Martians haven't agreed to the idea, remember. It'd be a bigger thing for them than for anybody else."
And I'm going back there soon to pursue the matter, sang within him.
"It's big for everybody," Stellarosa said. "More and more controversial as it takes shape, isn't it? The
psy-chosocial analysts warning how it could upset the econ-omy and endanger the peace "
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"They and their crapping equations!" exploded from Fenn. "Sure, the cybercosm and the Synesis
councillors don't like the idea. It'd complicate things, make them unpredictable, sure. But does that mean
they'll go bad for us? We aren't machines, we humans, and Keiki Moana, not yet!"
"Don't you think there could be dangers? How might the Proserpinans react? We know so little about
them and their intentions, and even less about what's been happen-ing among the stars."
"Proserpinans, ha! When did any clutch of Lunarians of any size ever get together on a single intention?
And as for the stars, they're what we should be bound for!"
"An albatross voyage," He'o said softly. "We can only swim the water we are in today. All else is the
currents of dream."
And yet he had fought storms, sharks, and his fellow bulls.
Stellarosa knew well how to move talk along. It be-came lively. Fenn almost regretted getting off the
slip-way. That was onto Tsiolkovsky Prospect, in the old part of town. The meeting was set for one of
the complexes fronting onHydra Square . Still conversing, the three walked onward over the duramoss,
between the triple arcades. Behind those high ogives were no longer any cu-rious shops or Lunarian
rendezvous, only apartments or antique exhibits. The ceiling above displayed no extrav-agant illusions,
only the simulacrum of a summery sky above Earth. The air bore no pungencies or plangent mu-sic, only
the foot-shuffle and chatter of Terrans. They were many, here within their city, hustling to and fro on their
various errands, crowding as Lunarians never did, clad more brightly and less sumptuously than
Lunarians ever were. Fenn's little party raised a bow wave of recognition stares, nudges, sudden
silences, murmurs, exclamations. Some persons, however, stood as if posted, waiting till they passed by,
looking and looking.
"Seems like word of us went ahead," Fenn remarked. Still in a fairly good mood, he didn't resent the fact
much.
"Yes, naturally," Stellarosa told him. "You may not realize how many folk are keenly interested in you.
You're something new, something strange and exciting. Quite a few of them, on Earth and Luna both,
have set their multis to record anything about you that comes into the dataline. Well, TrafCon satellites
routinely reported a suborbital jump from Archimedes to Port Bowen, which must be you two, and the
information had already gotten out by phone and so forth that you would be coming straight here to meet
with our local powers that be."
"Then why weren't more journalists lurking at the sta-tion?"
She laughed. "I was quicker than the rest."
Competition for trivia, Fenn thought. What if the day comes back when people compete for real prizes?
He'o, prone on his cart, stirred. Under the words, his voice barked and croaked; but the eyes shone in
the sleek head, above the massive body, as he glanced about him. "Yes, you are a peculiar race," he
said. "I will never fully understand you. Do you understand yourselves?" His whiskers quivered. "I,
though, I am going home to my sea."
Thunder smote. His skull exploded. Blood and brains fountained. The missile whanged off two walls
before it dropped.
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From a third-level arch tolled the baritone Anglo, fol-lowed by Spanyol and Sinese:
"Humans everywhere, true humans, Terrans, hear me! Today we have struck down a monster that was
about to attack our very souls. It was the foremost, but just the foremost, of countless monsters, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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