Mer-Cycle. Piers Anthony

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СКАЧАТЬ heard you. I wasn’t answering.”

      “Wasn’t what?”

      “Maybe we’d better change the subject.”

      “Why?”

      “You couldn’t expect me to agree with you, could you? I mean, I collect autographs, don’t I? So what am I supposed to say when you say you don’t think they are very much?”

      What was this? “You could have said you don’t agree.”

      “I did.”

      “When?”

      “When I didn’t say anything. I think that should be obvious.”

      “Obvious?”

      “Well, you seem to use different conversational conventions than I do, and it’s unpleasant to talk to someone who doesn’t understand your silences.”

      “Why not just say what you mean? I have no idea what’s bothering you.”

      “No more than I did, when you kept cutting me off.”

      Oh. “I’m sorry about that. I just had this notion it was all men on this circuit, and I thought something had gone wrong, the way my food did. I would have answered if I had realized.”

      “Well, then, I’ll answer you now. I don’t want to be placed in the position of having to defend something I know you don’t like. I mean, if I answered you there would be all kinds of emotional overtones in my voice, and that would be embarrassing and painful.”

      “About autographs?” he demanded incredulously.

      “Obviously you didn’t mean to be offensive,” she said, sounding hurt.

      “What do you mean, ‘mean to be’? I wasn’t offensive, was I?”

      “Well, I shouldn’t have said anything about it.”

      “Now don’t go clamming up on me again. One silence is enough.” He was feeling more confident, oddly.

      “I was trying to hint that I didn’t agree with you.”

      “About meaning being worth more than a signature?”

      She was silent again.

      “Oh come on!” he snapped. “What do you expect me to say to a silence?”

      “I’ve already told you why I don’t want to talk about it any more. You could at least have apologized for mentioning it again.”

      “Apologized?”

      “What kind of unfeeling barbarian culture did you grow up in, anyway?”

      “Primitive cultures are not unfeeling!”

      There was no answer.

      “You’re right,” he said with frustration. “We do have different conversational conventions.” Sane and insane, he was tempted to add.

      And so they sat, leaning back against the spongy coral wall, watching the little fish sidle in again. Don wondered what had happened.

CHAPTER 4

       ELEPH

       Proxy 5–12–5–16–8: Attention.

      Acknowledging.

       Status?

      Three recruits are in motion, with the fourth incipient. The liability of the third has been established, with what impact is uncertain. The group seems to be melding satisfactorily.

       Such melding is a two-edged tool. If they unify against the mission, it will be lost.

      I mean to see that they react properly. They will not be advised of the mission until the time is propitious.

       And if that time does not manifest?

      This group must be abolished and another assembled.

       You are prepared to destroy them?

      No.

       Though the alternative is to lose their world?

      I will abolish the group without invoking the mission. The individual members will return to their prior lives.

       And if you invoke the mission, and they oppose it?

      Then we shall have a problem.

      “There it is!” Gaspar cried. “Right on time.”

      Don jolted awake. It was night, and the rendezvous was upon them. He had slept when he hadn’t expected to, and it seemed that Melanie had done the same.

      They scrambled up and walked their bikes out to catch up with Gaspar, who was standing at the mouth of the cave. Then, together, they advanced on the lone figure beyond.

      The third man was Eleph: perhaps fifty, graying hair, forbidding lined face. There was a tic in his right cheek that Don recognized as a stress reaction similar to his own stuttering. Don would have had some sympathy, but for the cold manner of the man.

      Gaspar tried to make small talk, but Eleph cut him short. He let it be known that he expected regulations to be scrupulously honored. Obviously he was or had been associated with the military; he would not bend, physically or intellectually. There was an authoritative ring in his voice that made even innocuous comments—of which he made few—seem like commands. Yet he also telegraphed a formidable uncertainty.

      Don decided to stay clear of the man as much as possible. Gaspar, undaunted or merely stubborn, used another approach. “Look at that bicycle! How many speeds is that, Eleph?”

      Eleph frowned as if resenting the familiarity, though they were on a first name basis by the rules. He must have realized that it was impossible to be completely formal while perched on a bicycle anyway. “Thirty six,” he replied gruffly.

      Don thought he had misheard, but a closer look at the machine convinced him otherwise. It had a thick rear axle, a rear sprocket cluster, three chainwheels, and a derailleur at each end of the chain. The triple gearshift levers augmented the suggestion of a complex assortment of ratios. The handlebars were turned down, not up or level, and were set with all the devices Don had, plus a speedometer, horn, and others whose functions Don didn’t recognize. What paraphernalia!

      “Don here’s an archaeologist,” Gaspar said. “I’m a geologist. Melanie knows the coordinates for our various encounters. How about you?”

      Eleph hesitated, oddly. “Physicist.”

      “Oh—to СКАЧАТЬ