"Jack Williamson - Manseed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williamson Jack)

Manseed
Jack Williamson
1982
Customer Reviews

Can man plan beyond his own lifetime?, May 8, 1999
Reviewer
:
A great book to show that man can plan to keep the race going. A fantastic story of the future of
man while showing the limitations. --
 Contents
One - The Defender
Two - Attack Command
Three - Murdered World
Four - Genetic Malfunction
Five - Human Harvest
Six - Lethal Agent
About The Author
 One - The Defender

In the nightmare, he had no body. Frightened, he drifted forever in the empty dark, hunted by
things that had no shape, that made no sound, that had no minds except their monstrous hunger
for him. He tried to get away, but he had no limbs, no will, no clue to anything.
The alarm crashed.
He woke alone, chilled with sweat and shivering, clutching for Jayna until he remembered she
was gone. Lying alone in the dreadfully empty bed, he tried to understand the dream. It must
have come from the way he felt without her - desolate, helpless, still bewildered.
Trying not to hate her, he saw her in his mind. Nude and bitchily seductive, flashing down a
white coral beach toward whiter surf, Crowler panting after her.
Groggily, he throttled the alarm and groped for things not so painful. His lecture at ten. The
curriculum committee. The senior seminar. His pending research grant for the multilayer
micromemory and the call to La Jolla to look at Tomislav's Biowand software.
A hunger pang, but he ate no breakfast now. Not since she left. Dressing, missing even her
wry disapproval of his clashing shirt and necktie, he snapped on the morning news. Famine, riot,
terror - the world had matched his savage mood, and there was no cheer anywhere.
He cut off the TV. Walking to the Kingsmill campus, he tried to savor springtime. Trees in
leaf, a flower scent from somewhere, long-legged coeds blooming out of jeans and sneakers. A
songbird mocked him, and he yearned for her. Since she had left, all the world was empty.
The phone was ringing when he reached his office door. "Martin Rablon?" His heart paused
because the cool music of her voice could have been Jayna's. "The computer scientist?"
"I teach computer science."
"I'm Megan Drake. With the Raven Foundation. We need advice on a new direction in
computers." Jayna had never even tried to understand them. "Professor, are you available for a
consultation?"
"Sure." Another new escape, and he felt grateful for it. "After commencement - "
That black, never-ending nightmare chasm.
He sank into it, sank forever.
Who am I? Wordless urges ached and burst inside him. What place is this?
All he knew was darkness, stillness, bottomless infinity. That and a dull discomfort throbbing
in his head. A tingling deadness in his fingers, in his face and his feet. Still he sank - or was he