"Chapter 23" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gordon Dickson - Forever Man)

C H A P T E R

23





IT WAS UNBELIEVABLE. NOT ONLY THAT, THOUGHT JIM, 1T WAS
just about indescribable.
He and Mary and Squonk were surrounded by what could only be described as a host of innumerable invisible fireflies. To call them fireflies and at the same time to say they were invisible was a contradiction in terms, but it was the only way of describing them. They were invisible to any physical sight -even AndFriend's instruments did not register their presence. But his mind saw them very clearly indeed as multitudinous living points of colored lightslights whose colors changed constantly, so that it was like standing in the midst of a rainbow in the process of sorting itself out from an endless number of tiny component parts.
And they were constantly in motion.
Not only that, but they were not only in the ship but all around it. They were in the interior space of the ship, they were partway through the hull of the ship, they were outside the ship, swarming in space and stretching off into the interstellar distance like the tail of a comet.
"They see us! Like the other one!"
"That one doesn't."
266

THE FOREVER MAN / 267
"But these two do. It's lovely to see and be seen by you."
Their voices rang in Jim's mind, each one different and memorable. Each one audible separately for a moment before they were drowned by a perfect roar of greetings from what sounded at the very least like hundreds of thousands of such voices, all entirely individual.
"Who're you?" asked Jim.
"I'm me," said the chorusing host of different voices.
Jim shook his head, stunned.
"If you'd speak just one at a time," said Mary, "we could hear you better."
"Of course, if you wish. But what kind of hearing is that?" said one voice. "We loved your friend. We'll love you, I think. Why aren't more of you lovable?"
"I don't know what you mean by what kind of hearing," said Mary. "In what way are we lovable?"
"Are there different ways of being lovable?" asked a different voice.
"I asked you a question first," said Mary.
"No, you didn't," said the voice that had agreed to talk one at a time. "I asked you a question first."
"Got you," murmured Jim to Mary.
"What is `got'?"
"Look here," said Mary determinedly. "What do you mean, 'what kind of hearing?' and in what way are Jim and I lovable?"
"There really is only one way to hear," said the most recent voice to speak to them. "Just like there's only one way to see. The small hole that's your other friend doesn't see or hear us."
"You mean Squonk?"
"There it is again," said the voice resignedly. "You're just like your friend who could see and hear us. It's very painful for us when a person won't, of course. That's why we told your other friends not to come any nearer. We only let this one come with you because you two can see and hear us, and we wanted to talk to you. But you're just like your other friend we loved dearly, who was here before. He'd start to tell us something and then he wouldn't say it. You just did that. You said `you mean. . . ' and then you stopped."
"I didn't stop," said Mary. "I said his name was Squonk."


268 / Gordon R. Dickson
"You're doing it again. You say 'I said his . . . was...'"
"I think," said Jim, "that we've got a communications problem. When we say `talk,' we're referring to what we usually make as physical sounds in the air-'
"Of course!" said the speaker. Jim had privately named him ?1 and, seeing there were so many more of them, had, privately decided to think of all the others as simply ?plus. "Of course, you garble it up very much, but I think I understand you now. You make changes in your hole in order to converse. But why do that when you can talk?"
"I was starting out to say when you interrupted me-" began Jim.
"I'm sorry. I did interrupt you.'' -Yes, he's very sorry."
`-Very sorry, indeed."
`-We're all sorry with him."
`-We would have interrupted, too, because we didn't know you couldn't talk and listen at the same time."
A roar of apologies and explanations, all in different voices flooded in, then was cut off abruptly as the single voice spoke again.
"From now on, I'll wait for you to tell the when you're through speaking."
"That might get a little clumsy," put in Mary. "Why don't you just wait until one of us pauses? We always pause when we're ready to listen."