"Olaf Stapledon - Starmaker" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stapledon Olaf)

meaning- less. I inferred that my motion must therefore be in some manner a mental, not a physical phenomenon, that
I was enabled to take up successive viewpoints without physical means of locomotion. It seemed to me evident, too,
that the light with which the stars were now revealed to me was not normal, physical light; for I noticed that my new
and expe-ditious means of travel took no effect upon the visible colors of the stars. However fast I moved, they
retained their dia-mond hues, though all were somewhat brighter and more tinted than in normal vision.
No sooner had I made sure of my new power of locomo-tion than I began feverishly to use it. I told myself that I
was embarking on a voyage of astronomical and metaphysi-, cal research; but already my craving for the Earth was
dis-
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torting my purpose. It turned my attention unduly toward the search for planets, and especially for planets of the
ter-restrial type.
At random I directed my course toward one of the bright-er of the near stars. So rapid was my advance that certain
lesser and still nearer luminaries streamed past me like meteors. I swung close to the great sun, insensitive to its heat.
On its mottled surface, in spite of the pervading brilliance, I could see, with my miraculous vision, a group of huge dark
sun-spots, each one a pit into which a dozen Earths could have been dropped. Round the star's limb the excres-cences
of the chromosphere looked like fiery trees and plumes and prehistoric monsters, atiptoe or awing, all on a globe too
small for them. Beyond these the pale corona spread its films into the darkness. As I rounded the star in hyperbolic
flight I searched anxiously for planets, but found none. I searched again, meticulously, tacking and veering near and
far. In the wider orbits a small object like the earth might easily be overlooked. I found nothing but meteors and a few
insub-stantial comets. This was the more disappointing because the star seemed to be of much the same type as the
familiar sun. Secretly I had hoped to discover not merely planets but ac-tually the Earth.
Once more I struck out into the ocean of space, heading for another near star. Once more I was disappointed. I
ap-proached yet another lonely furnace. This too was unattended by the minute grains that harbor life.
I now hurried from star to star, a lost dog looking for its master. I rushed hither and thither, intent on finding a sun
with planets, and among those planets my home. Star after star I searched, but far more I passed impatiently,
recogniz-ing at once that they were too large and tenuous and young to be Earth's luminary. Some were vague ruddy
giants broad-er than the orbit of Jupiter; some, smaller and more definite, had the brilliance of a thousand suns, and
their color was blue. I had been told that our Sun was of average type, but I now discovered many more of the great
youngsters than of the shrunken, yellowish middle-aged. Seemingly I must have strayed into a region of late stellar
condensation.
I noticed, but only to avoid them, great clouds of dust, huge as constellations, eclipsing the star-streams; and tracts
of palely glowing gas, shining sometimes by their own light, sometimes by the reflected light of stars. Often these
nacrous cloud-continents had secreted within them a number of vague pearls of light, the embryos of future stars.
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I glanced heedlessly at many star-couples, trios, and quar-tets, in which more or less equal partners waltz in close
union. Once, and once only, I came on one of those rare couples in which one partner is no bigger than a mere Earth,
but mas-sive as a whole great star, and very brilliant. Up and down this region of the galaxy I found here and there a
dying star, somberly smoldering; and here and there the encrusted and extinguished dead. These I could not see till I
was almost upon them, and then only dimly, by the reflected light of the whole heaven. I never approached nearer to
them than I could help, for they were of no interest to me in my crazy yearning for the Earth. Moreover, they struck a
chill into my mind, prophesying the universal death. I was comforted, however, to find that as yet there were so few of
them.
I found no planets. I knew well that the birth of planets was due to the close approach of two or more stars, and that
such accidents must be very uncommon. I reminded myself that stars with planets must be as rare in the galaxy as
gems among the grains of sand on the sea-shore. What chance had I of coming upon one? I began to lose heart. The
appalling desert of darkness and barren fire, the huge emptiness so sparsely pricked with scintillations, the colossal
futility of the whole universe, hideously oppressed me. And now, an added distress, my power of locomotion began to
fail. Only with a great effort could I move at all among the stars, and then but slowly, and ever more slowly. Soon I
should find myself pinned fast in space like a fly in a collection; but lonely, eternally alone. Yes, surely this was my
special Hell.