[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Maimouna. Please concentrate on the task in hand. It's big enough.'
Maimouna protested. 'It's just because I admire how this war's been run so
very much. The way the Earth is defended without there being any visible war
at all.
It's so clever. That's why I want to know everything. About Yidag too. I'm
sure it'll make me a much better flier. Please, Chang! Do the Russian fliers
know as much as we know?'
Chang sighed.
'They believe what you believed in Miami. Only they're busy flying to Yidag
rather than Asura-'
'Won't you tell us just a little more about Yidag? It's so ingenious, the way
Bardo put these worlds together to fight the war!'
Finally - flattered? - Chang gave in.
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...enten/spaar/Ian%20Watson
%20-%20Alien%20Embassy.html (146 of 253)20-2-2006 21:30:12
Ian Watson - Alien Embassy
So we all learnt some more about how the fictitious Yidag 'bottle-beings'
soaked up energy from the fierce sunlight of Epsilon Indi for six Earth weeks
on end;
how they had clusters of photoelectric receptor cells growing on their heads,
and how their skin was criss-crossed by piezoelectric crystals. Piezoelectric
crystals are crystals which generate an electric current when they're
distorted; thus the heating by day and the freeze-contraction during the long
nights generated power too.
As well as analysing their sun's radiations and starlight through their
photoelectric cells, this piezoelectric skin of theirs let the Yidags monitor
gravity pulses. They could feel fluxes in the structure of spacetime as
intimately as we feel the pressure of a finger on our flesh, only far more
minutely.
The Yidags developed a high-level technology of mobile cyborg units and quasi-
machines, all linked to themselves by laser. With this they were busily
recasting their mineral world into a crystalline-metallic network of machines
and organisms, On account of their basic rootedness, society was
non-competitive;
nor were the Yidags destroying their environment by such large scale
Page 74
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
engineering. They were simply reorganizing it organically.
Maimouna smirked at her minor conquest of Chang.
'Have you noticed something about Dobdobs?' she asked me. 'I heard from one of
the Chinese fliers, who heard it from way back, that in the old days the
Chinese People's Army got rid of badges of rank and glossy officers' uniforms
because they looked undemocratic. But they still had to tell who was who. So
they used pens and pencils. The more pens or pencils a soldier had stuck in
his breast pocket, the higher he ranked. Have younoticed how the Dobdobs who
didn't know about the Star Beast always seemed to have only a couple of
pencils
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...enten/spaar/Ian%20Watson
%20-%20Alien%20Embassy.html (147 of 253)20-2-2006 21:30:12
Ian Watson - Alien Embassy in their top pocket - whereas Dobdobs like Chang
who do know about the war have three?'
I can't say that I had noticed, but now that I thought about it, it did seem
that she was right. Mentally, I reconstructed my original Bardo test... The
merry Dobdob, Youngden, might have had a couple of pencils in his pocket -
whereas Liu, whom Sam Shaw Had radioed about the 'Defence Facts', certainly
had three.
That fretful airfield controller in Dar es Salaam? Two, perhaps- And the same
with all our instructors at Miami Beach, so far as I could recall - up until
we were 'arrested'. Thereafter, three pencils definitely seemed to be the
norm-
'Feng has four pencils in his pocket, hasn't he, Lila? So what does he know
that
Chang doesn't? He seems to take a special interest in you,' she added, fishing
jealously.
Obviously this was the real point at issue. Maimouna thought that I was closer
to some seat of power. She didn't really care what Feng might know
, any more than she cared a hoot about Yidags - only what extra power Feng
might wield.
'He hasn't told me anything special. Except that Bardo is devoted to Humanity,
and that my Yungi is a fine baby whom I should be proud of.' Unlike your own
attitude to Doudou, I thought. No doubt she could read my expression easily
enough.
Feng did seem to be hinting at something, though. All his talk about
consciousness and the universe! Almost as though the Star Beast mightn't be
such a bad thing after all-
'Feng's just- more in charge. He has to think about the Star Beast. Whereas
the
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...enten/spaar/Ian%20Watson
%20-%20Alien%20Embassy.html (148 of 253)20-2-2006 21:30:12
Ian Watson - Alien Embassy others have to fight it. Someone's got to work out
what it is! If the defenders spent all their time theorizing about what's
attacking us-' I shrugged.
The system mightn't work so smoothly?'
'He's a senior administrator. And theorist, damn it! Busy working out ways to
extract information about the Beast through human babies. That's the truth
about his position. And the truth about yours and mine is that we'll both
become pregnant again - when the silver flows by way of the gold! You can't
escape, by ingratiating yourself with Chang and asking about Russia. They're
not going to send you there to help fool more Bardo fliers to keep the system
running smoothly! The lousy thing is that if it doesn't run smoothly, we all
go mad.'
Maimouna tapped her ear-globes archly. She wore them to lectures now, as
Page 75
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
though she wanted an opening to brag to Chang of how she'd guessed all along
that there must be a Star Beast; but he took no notice of them.
'I'll become pregnant again, will I?'
'You'll be caught in the same old web.'
'I shan't.'
'Has your new partner promised to perform mulabkanda for you and keep his
sperm to himself, then?'
'No chance of that. Very proud type. He boasts he's descended from a Siddha
saint called Mular. That's his name too. I don't care. He still won't be
fathering any little Mulars off Maimouna.'
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...enten/spaar/Ian%20Watson [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]