"Stephen Goldin - Herds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goldin Stephen)

He did see one hopeful note about these creatures, namely
that they seemed to have the herd instinct rather than acting
solely as individuals. They congregated in large cities and
seemed to do most things in crowds. They did have the potential
for being alone, but they didn't utilize it much.

He gathered his mind together once again and prepared to
make detailed observations. He zoomed down to the surface of
the world to watch. The creatures were obviously diurnal or they
wouldn't have needed lights for their cities, so at first he picked a
spot on the daylight hemisphere to observe. He had no worries at
all about being spotted by the natives; the Zartic method of
space exploration took care of that.

Basically, this method called for a complete separation of
body and mind. Drugs were taken to aid the dissociation, while
the Explorer rested comfortably in a machine. When the
separation occurred, the machine took over the mechanical
aspects of the body function— heartbeat, respiration,
nourishment and so on. The mind, meanwhile, was free to roam
at will wherever it chose. Few limits had thus far been found for
a freed mind. The speed at which it could "travel"—if, indeed, it
could be said to go anywhere—was so fast as to be
unmeasur-able; theoretically, it might even be infinite. A freed
mind could narrow its concentration down to a single subatomic
particle, or expand to cover vast areas of space. It could detect
electromagnetic radiation at any portion of the spectrum. And
best of all from the standpoint of the cautious Zarticku, it could
not be detected by any of the physical senses. It was a phantom
that could not be seen, heard, smelled, tasted or touched. All of
which made it the ideal vehicle with which to explore the
universe beyond Zarti's atmosphere.

Garnna stopped at a place where the land was regularly laid
out for the growing of crops. Farming varied but little
throughout the societies he had investigated so far, probably
because form followed function and the function was manifestly
the same. These creatures were plowing with crude implements
drawn by subservient, two-horned herbivore. This primitive
state of agriculture did not seem consistent with a civilization
that could also produce so many radio waves. In order to resolve
the apparent paradox, Garnna reached out with his mind and
touched the mind of one of the natives.

This was another advantage of the freed mind. It seemed to
have the ability to "listen in" on the thoughts of other minds. It
was telepathy, but in a very restricted sense for it worked only
one way. Garnna would be able to hear the thoughts of others,
but he himself would be undetectable.
 The phenomenon was not nearly as helpful as it might first