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If nothing ate us last night except the bugs goodness! I itch all over! then I
doubt if anything will eat me if I spend one more night by this road. Give me
the poor little darling and we'll head south."
Tony stared at her. "So this is it? Already?"
"I suppose so. It had to come sometime. It might jolly well be now." She
gestured with her arms to Alowi to get off Tony and climb up somewhere on her
back.
After a few moments' confusion Alowi figured it out enough to act, slid off,
and managed, with a little help from Anne Marie, to get up on the other twin.
"Good-bye, Tony," said Anne Marie. "I'll see you in a few weeks, I suppose,
unless we have a lot more luck than we have had in this matter so far." And
without another word she started off southwest, toward
Agon, at a brisk trot.
Tony stood there and watched her go until she was al-most out of sight, then
muttered, "Oh, hell," and trotted off southwest after them.
Just Off the Crab Nebula the kraang was not at all pleased. what had looked
from the start to be a fairly straightforward affair had now turned into a
series of Gordian knots that threatened all its plans.
Nathan Brazil, happily and stupidly diverted making flower garlands for his
girlfriend on a desert island well re-moved from the action, was nicely out of
the game, al-though the Kraang understood the Well sufficiently to know that
this would not, could not be allowed to become a per-manent condition. Still,
thanks to a race playing with pow-ers it was not capable of handling or
comprehending, the first job had been accomplished.
The Watcher had been diverted from the Well.
That should have provided more than enough time for the other to reach it
first, but instead that mad, sick inter-loper had captured her and placed her
in a situation where she, too, was no longer in control of events but which,
in-stead of representing the Kraang's interests, now threatened to do
horrible, irrecoverable harm.
Not that the Kraang didn't have a grudging admiration for Campos. If the
vengeful cutthroat succeeded in destroy-ing Mavra Chang's last vestiges of ego
and will, she would open the entrance for him but be unable or unwilling to
in-terface with the master control center. That would leave Campos free to
roam those vast corridors unhindered, and after realizing that he could not
comprehend, much less ac-tivate anything inside, he might well do terrible
harm in his inevitable rage. Once he was inside its bowels, the Well would be
helpless to control events concerning its own wel-fare.
And because she could still draw on the Well database to the limits of that
primitive ape brain, she might even be able to tell him how to do some simple
things that even so limited a creature could manage.
Probability was too complex to allow that. As a tiny stone in a pond made
great ripples, even a very minute al-teration of the basic matrix might, just
might, create a series of alternatives that would take the whole universe into
un-charted and unpredictable realms. Without one capable of handling and
manipulating such power, like the Kraang it-self, the results could be
disastrous.
Even the Watcher, whom the Well would undoubtedly summon with great urgency if
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
such a thing occurred, might not be able to fully straighten things out.
And yet without Mavra Chang to open the way, the Kraang could not reach those
controls itself.
Why hadn't they simply hibernated, as the Kraang had, until they were needed?
What could possibly be gained by a Watcher, or even two, living out
meaningless lives on some distant dirt ball until rather crudely summoned in
time of need?
Perhaps, it reflected, the judgment of eons had been wrong, after all. It had
always thought of the Others as wrongheaded and foolish, but until now their
competency had not been called into question.
Something would have to be done, and quickly. It was not used to thinking in
such terms, but this was
clearly not the time to ponder but to act.
But how?
Accessing Chang or even Brazil was out. It had managed a brief access while
she was in transition, but once on the Well World, access to either her or
Brazil was blocked. As for the rest, so far they were accessible only as
viewers, strictly one-way communication. They were neither men-tally strong
enough to be used nor tied into the Well matrix.
There had to be some way, somehow, to break this apart, to create a flood from
the logjam. Options had to be weighed, possibilities explored if they existed,
and risks taken, even if it used up precious energy it could ill afford to
squander if things didn't go just exactly right.
It was a question of divine intervention in a situation where there was no
god.
More than ever, though, it was convinced that it was right, that it had been
right all along.
This universe required a god and was instead stuck with two incompetent repair
technicians.
There had to be a way. There had to be something that could be done.
But after four billion years of meaningless existence driv-ing to and fro
among the stars, finding even vast blocks of time meaningless, it wasn't used
to thinking that time, any time, was quickly running out.
Page 177 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl akte20.pev.pl
If nothing ate us last night except the bugs goodness! I itch all over! then I
doubt if anything will eat me if I spend one more night by this road. Give me
the poor little darling and we'll head south."
Tony stared at her. "So this is it? Already?"
"I suppose so. It had to come sometime. It might jolly well be now." She
gestured with her arms to Alowi to get off Tony and climb up somewhere on her
back.
After a few moments' confusion Alowi figured it out enough to act, slid off,
and managed, with a little help from Anne Marie, to get up on the other twin.
"Good-bye, Tony," said Anne Marie. "I'll see you in a few weeks, I suppose,
unless we have a lot more luck than we have had in this matter so far." And
without another word she started off southwest, toward
Agon, at a brisk trot.
Tony stood there and watched her go until she was al-most out of sight, then
muttered, "Oh, hell," and trotted off southwest after them.
Just Off the Crab Nebula the kraang was not at all pleased. what had looked
from the start to be a fairly straightforward affair had now turned into a
series of Gordian knots that threatened all its plans.
Nathan Brazil, happily and stupidly diverted making flower garlands for his
girlfriend on a desert island well re-moved from the action, was nicely out of
the game, al-though the Kraang understood the Well sufficiently to know that
this would not, could not be allowed to become a per-manent condition. Still,
thanks to a race playing with pow-ers it was not capable of handling or
comprehending, the first job had been accomplished.
The Watcher had been diverted from the Well.
That should have provided more than enough time for the other to reach it
first, but instead that mad, sick inter-loper had captured her and placed her
in a situation where she, too, was no longer in control of events but which,
in-stead of representing the Kraang's interests, now threatened to do
horrible, irrecoverable harm.
Not that the Kraang didn't have a grudging admiration for Campos. If the
vengeful cutthroat succeeded in destroy-ing Mavra Chang's last vestiges of ego
and will, she would open the entrance for him but be unable or unwilling to
in-terface with the master control center. That would leave Campos free to
roam those vast corridors unhindered, and after realizing that he could not
comprehend, much less ac-tivate anything inside, he might well do terrible
harm in his inevitable rage. Once he was inside its bowels, the Well would be
helpless to control events concerning its own wel-fare.
And because she could still draw on the Well database to the limits of that
primitive ape brain, she might even be able to tell him how to do some simple
things that even so limited a creature could manage.
Probability was too complex to allow that. As a tiny stone in a pond made
great ripples, even a very minute al-teration of the basic matrix might, just
might, create a series of alternatives that would take the whole universe into
un-charted and unpredictable realms. Without one capable of handling and
manipulating such power, like the Kraang it-self, the results could be
disastrous.
Even the Watcher, whom the Well would undoubtedly summon with great urgency if
Page 176
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
such a thing occurred, might not be able to fully straighten things out.
And yet without Mavra Chang to open the way, the Kraang could not reach those
controls itself.
Why hadn't they simply hibernated, as the Kraang had, until they were needed?
What could possibly be gained by a Watcher, or even two, living out
meaningless lives on some distant dirt ball until rather crudely summoned in
time of need?
Perhaps, it reflected, the judgment of eons had been wrong, after all. It had
always thought of the Others as wrongheaded and foolish, but until now their
competency had not been called into question.
Something would have to be done, and quickly. It was not used to thinking in
such terms, but this was
clearly not the time to ponder but to act.
But how?
Accessing Chang or even Brazil was out. It had managed a brief access while
she was in transition, but once on the Well World, access to either her or
Brazil was blocked. As for the rest, so far they were accessible only as
viewers, strictly one-way communication. They were neither men-tally strong
enough to be used nor tied into the Well matrix.
There had to be some way, somehow, to break this apart, to create a flood from
the logjam. Options had to be weighed, possibilities explored if they existed,
and risks taken, even if it used up precious energy it could ill afford to
squander if things didn't go just exactly right.
It was a question of divine intervention in a situation where there was no
god.
More than ever, though, it was convinced that it was right, that it had been
right all along.
This universe required a god and was instead stuck with two incompetent repair
technicians.
There had to be a way. There had to be something that could be done.
But after four billion years of meaningless existence driv-ing to and fro
among the stars, finding even vast blocks of time meaningless, it wasn't used
to thinking that time, any time, was quickly running out.
Page 177 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]