Odnośniki
- Indeks
- Jack Vance Dying Earth 03 Cugel's Saga
- Greg Bear Songs of Earth 01 The Infinity Concerto
- Jack Williamson The Ultimate Earth
- Glen Chapman There Were Giants On The Earth
- Forrest J Ackerman This Island Earth
- James Axler Deathlands 00 Encounter
- Fred Saberhagen Lost Swords 2 Sightblinder's Story
- Fred Saberhagen Berserker 14 Berserker's Star
- 2.Krwawa bogini
- Mroczny powód Ellroy James
- zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- staramsie.pev.pl
the wall now, and had been crossing off days, and there was no doubt that
another year had passed.
Today when several of the boys ganged up on Bart in a rough game they easily
pushed him around. Not that there had been any plan on their part to gang up
on him, or that they were not still impressed by his strength.
And this year there were certain moments, talking to the girls, when, oddly,
Bart felt almost bashful.
Eleven
Suddenly some of the boys, Baruch and Olen in particular, were almost as tall
as Bart himself. And Deirdre and Sigrid were starting to round out into the
shapes of women;
only just starting, but you could tell the process had begun.
Right in the middle of the cake-eating, the birthday party turned solemn, and
there was a long sober discussion of early memories and hopes for the future.
All of them except Bart shared as some of their major lifetime memories the
things that he had seen during the last eleven days the old nursery, the
parental images and the guardian machines, the toys and teaching devices. Of
course he had missed the greater part of their history, but he had a sampling
of it.
They sat there soberly sipping their sweet party drinks and talking. When it
came
Bart's turn to recount his early memories, he explained that the Ship must
have scrambled them for him in some way, erasing large sections. "I don't even
know if I
was raised out of the machines like you, or if my biological parents were on
board, or if I was born on Earth."
No one could give him any help with those questions. The talk went on for a
long, moody time before they got around to playing games.
Twelve
Bart found himself looking up at Baruch, and level-eyed at a number of the
other kids. The Ship was allowing them more freedom now, and everyone except
Trac, who had a stomach-ache, had come to meet Bart right outside his room,
the doors of which could only be opened by the Ship. Even Tang was there,
though hobbling on a broken leg he said he had got by falling two decks down a
stairwell. Ship's medical machines had neatly fixed the bones and told him he
was healing.
Today the kids' collective attitude was at first so grown-up and businesslike
that Bart was almost intimidated. They explained to him that they had just
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formed themselves into a society, modeled on old societies of Earth that they
had studied through the teaching machines. Baruch had been elected president,
and others chosen to fill at least half a dozen additional offices.
Even the birthday party began in an atmosphere of formality, but things soon
loosened up. Bart was still stronger than Baruch, and could outwrestle him
with an effort. But stocky Kichiro was now slightly stronger than he.
Thirteen
Chao, this month's president, announced early in the morning that this year's
party was going to be a thirteenth birthday celebration for Bart as well as
all the others. All the others chorused agreement, and Bart went along without
protest, though he knew full well he had passed his real thirteenth birthday
many months ago. He had not the
slighest idea whether there had been any party to mark the event, so he
enjoyed this one as his due.
All through the day the girls paid him a great deal of attention, to which he
reacted confusedly, enjoying it all one moment and feeling tongue-tied and
awkward the next.
He could tell some of the boys were getting jealous.
Every night recently he had been saying goodnight with the feeling of saying
farewell, knowing that never again would he meet the same people he was
leaving.
Tonight he tried to stay with them, but one of the machines came and took him
gently by the arm and led him from the group toward his room. He looked round
at the other children's faces, and saw sympathy but no help, and knew he had
to go.
Fourteen
Every morning now he went to greet some strangers, boys and girls he had heard
about indirectly but had never seen before. They resembled other kids he had
met yesterday, and had their names, but that was all. Their bodies were
melting and altering almost while Bart watched, flesh inflating and stretching
over elongating bones; boys' faces sprouting elementary whiskers while their
voices deepened, girls'
breasts growing, girl's legs curving and rounding to spell out disturbing
secret messages in visual code.
And today they could literally talk over his head. Bart was small for his age.
That's what who was it? always used to say.
During the party, right in the middle of the ice cream and cake, a fistfight
broke out between Fritz and Kichiro. They slugged away at each other so hard
that Bart saw he wouldn't be able to stand up to either of them for ten
seconds.
The machines just stood around like dummies and made no move to halt the
fight.
Fay, the current president, had to yell repeatedly to get other kids to step
in and break it up.
As soon as things had settled down little, some of the kids began drifting
out of the a room in pairs, a boy and a girl together kissing and maybe pawing
at each other as they left. Bart felt strange and almost frightened. The kids
that remained in the dining hall talked and giggled and talked, talked,
talked. The conversation was about nothing important, but still it seemed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]