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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] half-turned to him. She sat motionless, her profile a thing of patchwork shade and shadow, like a woodcut. Are you awake? Page 101 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html It was the voice of Rosach, above him. Yes, Barin whispered. But it seemed they had not heard him. It never happened before, clicked the voice of the hardware man. Not like this. It was& said Barin, and stopped. What? demanded the crackling, high oldvoice. Nothing, said Barin. Nothing There were confused murmurs from above him, muted argument in which nothing was understandable. We have, after all, a duty, said the deep, sad voice of Mikkelson, louder than the rest. Andthe others passed through? asked Rosach. Directions, said Mikkelson, that was all they wanted. It was the others, saidBarin , numbly, those in the car& it s the rest of the world that haunts here. Shut him up! cried the crackling voice, angrily. This place is haunted by the rest of the world. Dineen! cried Barin suddenly. Dineen, this town is haunted by the real world, isn t it? Yes, her voice came calmly through the darkness. She had not moved. Shut her up, too! screeched the old voice. How can we think with that gabbling? What sin was it that Barin raised himself suddenly on one elbow. What s that smell? It will be fall in a few months, said Mikkelson s voice, and with the first snow, the roads It sgoats! screamed Barin suddenly, scrabbling to his feet. It s a goat pen in here! You re not going to lock me up with goats He made a plunge into darkness, but the arms were around him again. There s no goats! squawked the old voice. You can t fool me! cried Barin, plunging and biting. I won t be locked up to rot in a pen with goats. I tell you I can smell them! He smells himself, now, said the voice of Rosach in Barin s ear. Help me get the rope around him and tie him up. Barinfelt the harsh, thick fiber winding around him, but it could hardly hold him. He twisted and plunged in the darkness, butting at anything he felt close to him and bleating his terror, while his churning feet pounded and galloped to nowhere on the hard packed dirt of the ground, like hooves. On Earth, men and plants increase, cheered and checked by the self-same Page 102 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html sky. Elsewhere they might grow even closer together. The Three When the sun went down the klantheid stirred, unfolding its petals until they spilled over the top of the tank in a tumbled mass of green and gold glory, and stretching its slim, fibrous body in the nutrient fluid in the tank.It had slept for a while, but not well, and it was impatient for the woman to come and feed it. It extended the filaments at the base of its petals, searching the house for her presence. For the filaments were the Klantheid s perceptive organs. With them it saw, tasted,heard , felt and smelled not as humans do, but in a deeper, more intimate way for which the human language has no words. With them it could even talk, by complex vibrations of the filament tips together in a sort of husky thrilling whisper. And it talked with the woman often; but with the man only when it had to. The Klantheids were the dominant life form of Pelao, a small Arcturian planet completely devoid of anything but plant life a garden planet, a meadow-world and a botanist s dream. To protect Pelao Central Headquarters, the supreme authority of interstellar and interplanetary human civilization had early set it aside as a government preserve. It was reserved for the botanists and for the research into new fields of organic medicine that grew out of its wealth of plant life and fertile soil. The Klantheids, in particular, were awarded the highest and most strict protection, for before the perambulating, sometimes vicious animal that was man they were helpless. But in late years, the regulations had been relaxed enough to allow the lonely outposts of gardeners and watchers to fraternize that is, take an occasional Klantheid into a nutrient tank in their dwelling quarters and keep it there as a companion, friend or pet. This, then, was one of those outposts. The man was a sort of gardener-watchman, a flower warden, responsible for several thousand square miles of the garden planet, and gone most of the time on the constant patrol that his job required during the ten-year term of his office. The woman was his wife, brought in to share his term of office with him by special permission. And the house was their home. All this the Klantheid knew not as humans know it, but in an odd, personal way. For the Klantheid had senses beyond humans and the chiefest of these was the ability to respond to emotion. This, indeed, was the source of its delicateness. There were other plants men had known, on Earth as well as on other planets,who could be hurt and die from slight changes of temperature, who died in the sun, or the sudden damp, or perished at the touch of a finger. The Klantheid was not like these. In its own way it was hardy able if the need arose to go without food or fluid for a long time, and even to drag itself painfully by great effort from one place to another. Ironically, it was extremely sensitive to smoke; and for that reason cigarettes wereverboten around it. But generally speaking it was a sturdy life-form, with the single exception of emotion. It was for this reason that it had not slept well not this afternoon, nor many afternoons past. This was because the woman was unhappy, with a deep and buried sorrow, and the Klantheid suffered at the touch of her sorrow and did [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |