"Barry N. Malzberg - Phase IV" - читать интересную книгу автора (Malzberg Barry N)

PHASE IV
Barry N. Malzberg

This one is for Bob Gleason.
Copyright, ©, 1973, by Simon & Schuster, Inc.



PHASE I

Time: Something clicked and in the nebula shaped like a spirochete, a
bolt of energy moved from one side to the other, seventeen light-years, and
then vaulted into pure space. Pure space was another two hundred
thousand light-years, and the energy, now compacted, whisked through it
like a fish through water, accelerating, the inside curiously static.



Time: Something attacked the energy, some cosmic turbulence or
another intelligence, impossible to tell, and the energy felt itself being
squeezed, became sentient then, and fought back. Somewhere in the Crab
cluster, the attacker and the intelligence fought, and the battle lasted for
fifteen thousand years. Then the attacker fell away like ash and the energy
continued on its journey. Intelligence withdrew. At some subliminal level
it meditated.
The system rotated around a small Class B star, the star almost a dwarf,
in a far sector of the Milky Way. The sun in normal cycle would approach
nova in fifteen billion years, burn out then and consume the system. Now
it was still on the upswing. The radiance from this star drew the
approaching energy to life once again and it became sensate. It probed
through channels of recollection in a way that both was and was not
conscious.
It landed on the third planet.
Although the energy, long compressed for the journey, was only the size
of a small stone now, three inches across, six inches wide and deep, the
impact tore at it as it skittered through the sands, and for a long, long
time it existed in a state of nonconscious-ness. At some base level, it
struggled for survival, to combat the injury of the impact, and it did not
seem that it would survive, but the traveler was strong—its makers had
prepared it for this—and after an inconceivably long time, it began to
gather strength once again. It had passed the point of survival. Moistened
by rain, sheltered by the sands, the energy slowly returned to its full
awareness, and then it broke free of the stone, probing with fine tentacles
of consciousness for contact.



Contact: It found the minds that it was seeking. The minds were
vegetative, possessed intelligence unlike any conventional notions of
reason . . . but they were linked in a clear dependency, a fine network of