The Complete Short Stories: The 1950s. Brian Aldiss

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ expurgated, nothing added! Better than the Feelies! All in glorious 4D – no stereos required.’

      Fuming at the description of himself, Rodney crumpled the brochure in his hand. He wondered bitterly how many of his own generation were helplessly enduring this gross irreverence in peepshows all over the world. When the sense of outrage abated slightly, curiosity reasserted itself; he smoothed out the folder and read a brief description of the process which ‘will give you history-sterics as it brings each era nearer’.

      Below the heading ‘It’s Fabulous – It’s Pabulous!’ he read: ‘Just as anti-gravity lifts a man against the direction of weight, chrono-grab can lift a machine out of the direction of time and send it speeding back over the dark centuries. It can be accurately guided from the present to scoop up a fragment from the past, slapping that fragment – all unknown to the people in it – right into your lucky laps. The terrific expense of this intricate operation need hardly be emphas – ’

      ‘Driver!’ Rodney screamed. ‘Do you know anything about this time-grabbing business?’

      ‘Only what I have heard, sir.’

      ‘What do you mean by that?’

      ‘My built-in information centre contains only facts relating to my duty, sir, but since I also have learning circuits I am occasionally able to collect gossip from passengers which – ’

      ‘Tell me this, then: can human beings as well as machines travel back in time?’

      The buildings were still flashing by, silent, hostile in the unknown world. Drumming his fingers wildly on his seat, Rodney awaited an answer.

      ‘Only machines, sir. Humans can’t live backwards.’

      For a long time he lay and cried comfortably. The automoto made solacing cluck-cluck noises, but it was a situation with which it was incompetent to deal.

      At last, Rodney wiped his eyes on his sleeve, the sleeve of his Sunday suit, and sat up. He directed the driver to head for the main offices of Chronoarcheology, and slumped back in a kind of stupor. Only at the headquarters of that fiendish invention might there be people who could – if they would – restore him to his own time.

      Rodney dreaded the thought of facing any creature of this unscrupulous age. He pressed the idea away, and concentrated instead on the peace and orderliness of the world from which he had been resurrected. To see Oxford again, to see Valerie … Dear, dear Valerie …

      Would they help him at Chronoarcheology? Or – supposing the people at the fair-ground repaired their devilish apparatus before he got there … What would happen then he shuddered to imagine.

      ‘Faster, driver,’ he shouted.

      The wide-spaced buildings became a wall.

      ‘Faster, driver,’ he screamed.

      The wall became a mist.

      ‘We are doing mach 2.3, sir,’ said the driver calmly.

      ‘Faster!’

      The mist became a scream.

      ‘We are about to crash, sir.’

      They crashed. Blackness, merciful, complete.

      A bedspring groaned and pinged and the mists cleared. Rodney awoke. From the bathroom next door came the crisp, repetitive sound of Jim shaving …

       Our Kind of Knowledge

      It was a glorious day for exploring the Arctic Circle. The brief and violent spring had exploded over the bleak lands with a welter of life. The wilderness was a wilderness of flowers. Flocks of tern and golden plover, with the world to sport in, stood here leg-deep in blossom. Acres of blue ice crocus stretched away into the distance like shallow pools reflecting the clear skies. And on the near horizon rose a barrier of snow-covered mountains, high and harmless.

      Five of them constituted the exploring party: the Preacher, Aprit, Woebee, Calurmo and Little Light – the Preacher ahead as usual. They moved to the top of a rise, and there was the valley stretched before them, washed and brilliant. There, too, was the spaceship.

      Calurmo cried out in excitement and darted down among the flowers. The others saw instantly what was in his mind and followed fast behind, calling and laughing.

      To them it was the most obvious feature of the colourful plain. Calurmo touched it first, and then they crowded around looking at it. The Preacher bent down and sniffed it.

      ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Definitely wood sorrel: Oxalis acetosella. How clever of it to grow up here.’ His thoughts held a pious tinge; they always did; it was for that he bore the name Preacher.

      Only afterwards did they notice the spaceship. It was very tall and sturdy and took up a lot of ground that might more profitably have been used by the flowers. It was also very heavy, and during the time it had stood there its stem had sunk into the thawing earth.

      ‘A nice design,’ Woebee commented, circling it. ‘What do you think it is?’

      High above their heads it towered. On the highest point sat a loon, preening itself in the sun and uttering occasionally its cry, the cry of emptiness articulate. Around the shadowed side of the ship, a shriveled heap of snow rested comfortably against the metal. The metal was wonderfully smooth, but dark and unshining.

      ‘However bulky it is down here, it manages to turn into a spire at the top,’ the Preacher said, squinting into the sun.

      ‘But what is it?’ Woebee repeated; then he began to sing, to show that he did not mind being unaware of what it was.

      ‘It was made,’ Aprit said cautiously. This was not like dealing with wood sorrel; they had never thought about spaceships before.

      ‘You can get into it here,’ Little Light said, pointing. He rarely spoke, and when he did he generally pointed as well.

      They climbed into the airlock, all except Calurmo, who still stooped over the wood sorrel. Its fragrant pseudo-consciousness trembled with happiness in the fresh warmth of the sun. Calurmo made a slight churring noise, persistent and encouraging, and after a minute the tiny plant broke loose of the soil and crawled onto his hand.

      He brought it up to his great eyes and let his thoughts slide gently in through the roots. Slowly they radiated up a stalk and into one of the yellow-green trefoils, probing, exploring the sappy being of the leaf. Calurmo brought pressure to bear. Reluctantly, then with excitement, the plant yielded, and among its pink-streaked blossoms formed another, with five sepals, five petals, ten stamens and five stigmas, identical with the ones the plant had grown unaided.

      The taste of oxalic acid still pleasant in his thoughts, Calurmo sat back and smiled. To create a freak – that was nothing; but to create something just like the originals – how the others would be pleased!

      ‘Calurmo!’ It was Aprit, conspiratorial, almost guilty. ‘Come and see what we’ve found.’

      Knowing it would not be as delightful as the sorrel, nevertheless Calurmo jumped up, eager СКАЧАТЬ