"Chapter 21" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gordon Dickson - Forever Man)

246 I Gordon R. Dickson
being carried, floated just above the floor of the room; and the driver of their raft maneuvered it into position on the end of one row. The driver then departed, leaving the raft there, with Squonk still mindlessly searching the surface of the vehicle's platform.
Almost immediately another squonk appeared, carrying what looked like a large piece of mosquito netting, and threw it over both Squonk and the raft. Looking out through the meshes, which were so large and flimsy they barely obscured the view, Jim noticed what he had been too concerned with Squonk to notice before; and that was that a good share of. the other vehicle-beds had their occupants enclosed by similar settings.
Almost immediately, the netting began to radiate a mild heat, and this seemed to have a calming effect on Squonk. He pulled in his extendible body parts, stood for a little while unmoving, then rolled over on his back and abandoned wakefulness.
"He's asleep?" asked Mary. It was the first word she had said since Jim had peremptorily shut her up in the discussion room.
"Yes," said Jim. "Which means we're all right for the present."
"Why only for the present?" Mary echoed.
"Because Squonk'll either die or get well," said Jim. "If he dies, we're stuck in a dead body-and we've seen what they do with dead bodies here. We'll probably end up in some trash pit or incineratorI'll bet on the incinerator rather than the pit."
"And if he lives?" Mary's voice was controlled and even.
"If he lives, I can imagine some Laagi checking up on what made him sick enough to end up here. I've no idea how detailed the information might be that a Laagi can get out of a squonk. Have you? But if the Laagi learns that all this time, Squonk's been searching for something that's missing from AndFriend, and that he's been getting his orders from a Laagi that's not there in the flesh, what do you think's going to happen?"
I've no idea," said Mary, still levelly. "But I imagine nothing good-for us. You were right and I was wrong about overworking Squonk. Aside from that, everything I said ear

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lier still goes. And now, since there's nothing much for me to observe here, and because I really could use some sleep right now, I'm going to fold up. Wake me if you need me."
She stopped talking, and a moment later Jim felt sure that he was once more picking up the mental signals from her that indicated she was truly slumbering.
He himself was wide awake with no desire to sleep at all. It was strange to be so alert, while his two companions were out of it, so to speak. They were asleep, around him all the other invalid squonks were asleep and no squonk attendants were in the room. He was literally alone with his thoughts.
He let them run free, accordingly. They flitted from speculation over how long Squonk would take to get rested, and how long Mary would take to rest up; and ended up speculating about things he and she had observed in their exploration of this Laagi city. Eventually, they ended up in speculation about the Laagi themselves.
There was something driving the Laagi, as a race, Jim thought. They were concerned with something more than just survival and increasing their population by settling more worlds. Perhaps, he thought, they had some sort of racial vision, some sort of dream that was strong enough to drive them all-perhaps strong enough to drive them forever.
They were too advanced, too civilized, not to be headed somewhere. The war with the human race, the endless work, all that was a product of the older part of their brains. But there was more to them than those obvious things. Both he and Mary had come to feel that the rooms in which many Laagi sat and observed one of their number apparently in conversation with the picture of another Laagi on a screen, as well as the "clubs" where they gathered and communicated in anything from pairs up to small groups, had to do with learning and decision-making; and almost surely, if those first two were present activities, with speculation as well.
Like humans they must wonder where it all led to, and what was the right way to go. And if they attacked that question with the relentless effort they brought to everything else they did, they could have made admirable progress, even by this time, possibly in some ways humanity had not even considered.
He found himself admitting to himself that he had come to

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admire the Laagi in certain ways, just as he had come to admire Squonk in some of the attitudes and efforts which that little creature showed. Mary was right. He and she must observe and deduce and come to understand this alien race. Just as technologically-advanced races on Earth had at first been blind to what could be learned from races who appeared technologically backward until they began to learn better in the twentieth century, so it would be easy now to be blind to what the Laagi must have discovered and put to use that humanity had not even imagined.
Whatever the Laagi were, they had things to teach us ....
Somewhere along the way with that thought, Jim himself fell asleep. He continued to sleep and think, alternately, as time passed and he waited for Mary and Squonk to recover.
After all, there was nothing else he could do. There was no possibility in any case of going anywhere without Squonk, and Squonk was clearly in no shape to move. They all waited, therefore, for the better part of two days.
Once a day, as closely as Jim could figure time here, one of the squonks who acted as attendant in the ward would come around with a container filled with pink cubes about the size of a child's toy block.
These looked rather as if they had been made out of strawberry jelly. The attendant squonk gave one to each of the patients, including Squonk. Squonk ate it with every appearance of appetite and seemed to be fully satisfied as far as food was concerned until the attendant came around with another cube the next day. Jim used the visits of the attendant with food as one of the means to estimate the passage of time here indoors.
He remembered that it had been late afternoon, local time, when Squonk had been carried to the hospital. Jim made his best estimate of the hours that had gone by since then. In the situation they now found themselves, if anything was to be done once Squonk was able to move, Jim wanted to do it at night.
Twice-according to Jim's reckoning, it was during the early morning hours-a Laagi came through the room and examined each squonk that was a patient there. Most he merely glanced at. In about a dozen cases the squonk he examined was able to stretch its neck out in the customary action of one of its race waiting to accept orders. When this hap-

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pened, the visiting Laagi vibrated his arm above the proffered neck; and, in two instances, the squonk so spoken to got to its feet, stepped down off the raft that had been its hospital bed, and left the room. In all other cases, the squonk touched went back to sleep.
There was one incident, however, that varied from this usual pattern. During the second Laagi visit-Jim had no way to tell if it was the same alien as the fast time-at one of the beds, as the Laagi stopped to look at its occupant, but without extending his arm, the squonk lying there began to struggle to move and managed to get up on its feet, although its legs were still not extended. The squonk shakily stretched out his neck toward the Laagi and reached out fumblingly with his tentacles to encircle the Laagi's arm. Most of the tentacles slipped off, but two managed to maintain their grasp on the Laagi's arm. Effortfully, the squonk pulled the arm into position over his extended neck.
For a second the Laagi merely stood there. Something about the way he stood seemed to signal to Jim-he did not know why-a feeling of sorrow or sadness. Then he began to vibrate his held arm over the extended neck, and as he did so the squonk shivered ecstatically and one of its legs managed to extend itself slightly. It was only then that Jim saw that the hand at the end of the other arm of the Laagi was stealthily approaching the underside of the extended neck, dark thumb stiffly upraised like the end of a blunt club. As the squonk seemed to bask under the vibrations of the Laagi arm above him this thumb came to within inches of the underside of the neck-and suddenly thrust upward.
The blow was a more violent one than Jim had expected, testifying to a strength in the Laagi arm he had not suspected those aliens of possessing. There was an audible crack, as of something breaking in the squonk's neck, and it suddenly dropped, to lie still with its head at an angle to its' neck.
Two of the attendant squonks that were presently in the ward had started forward when the bedridden squonk had first started to struggle to its feet, but halted when the Laagi extended his arm over the sick one's neck. Now the Laagi turned away, and they came forward, lifted the obviously dead body between them and carried it off.
The Laagi moved on to examine the next patient. It may

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have been Jim's imagination, but it seemed to him the Laagi still radiated sadness, an emotion Jim had never before seen in one of the aliens. He found himself happy, for some obscure reason, that Squonk-their Squonk-had slept through the whole incident. In fact, Squonk had been unhesitatingly obedient in composing himself again for sleep whenever he woke up and Jim urged him back into slumber.
Squonk had been awake when a visiting Laagi had entered the room the first time, but Jim had urged him then to go back to sleep; and in docile fashion, Squonk had. He was therefore still asleep when the visiting Laagi got to him. The Laagi gave him a quick glance and went on. Jim had not been holding his breath only because he had no breath to hold; but a great relief washed over him as the Laagi moved on to the next patient.
For a second Jim was almost tempted to wake Mary-who had also slept through it all-to share that relief and the story of how they had escaped a closer examination of Squonk. But prudence held him back. He let Mary sleep on.
The second day when the Laagi-or some Laagi; it was impossible to tell if it was the same one that had come the day before-entered the ward, Mary was awake and witnessed the death, and Jim was able to tell her how the previous visit had gone. Once more he was successful in convincing Squonk to be asleep when the visiting physician, veterinarian or whatever, came by.
11 . . . But that," said Jim to Mary after the Laagi had left them, "is probably the last time I'll be able to make Squonk sleep when that visitor comes. Squonk's definitely getting slept up and beginning to feel restless. He may not be ready to go back to work, but he certainly feels like it. That means we have to make a break for it tonight."