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

himself farther and farther. Images were becoming blurry and
his mind seemed to hold only a tenuous grip on its own identity.
He encountered some tiny rocks floating in space, but declined
to even consider them. The next world out was a gas giant. It was
very difficult to make it out because his mentality was stretched
so thin at this point, but that was not necessary. The search for
planets was over in this system, he knew, for he had passed
outside the zone of habitability once more. A gas giant like this
could not exist within that zone, according to theory. There
might be other planets beyond the orbit of this one, but they
wouldn't matter, either. The Offasü would not be interested in
them, and therefore Garnna wasn't interested in them.

He returned his attention to the double planet system.

He felt enormous relief as he reeled in all the far-flung parts of
his mind that had expanded through space. It was always a good
feeling when the initial planetary survey was over, a feeling of
bringing disparate elements together to form a cohensive whole
once more. A feeling akin to making a Herd out of individuals,
only on a smaller, more personal scale.

It was bad enough to be a lone Zartic out in space, cut off
from the entire Herd not to mention the safety and security of
his own iff-group. The job was necessary, of course, for the good
of the Herd, but necessity did not make it any the more pleasant.
And when an individual Zartic had to extend parts of himself
until there was almost nothing left, that was almost unbearable.
That was why Garnna hated that part of the mission the worst.
But it was over, now, and he could concentrate on the real
business of Exploration.
***

Wesley Stoneham was a big man, well over six feet, with
broad, well-muscled shoulders and the face of a middled-aged
hero. He still had all his hair, a thick black mane of it, cut so that
it would even muss stylishly. The forehead beneath the hair was
comparatively narrow and sported large, bushy eyebrows. His
eyes were steel gray and determined, his nose prominent and
straight. In his hand, he carried a medium-sized suitcase.

"I got your note," was all he said as he took a folded piece of
paper from his pocket and flipped it to the ground at his wife's
feet.

Stella exhaled softly. She recognized that tone all too well, and
knew that this was going to be a long and bitter evening. "Why
the suitcase?" she asked.

"As long as I was driving up here, I thought I might as well