JК
Crashlander :: Нивен Ларри
Страница: 35 из 199As the Core came closer, the patch grew like something alive, something needing ever more food. I think I knew, even then.
Night came. The control room was a blaze of light. I slept in the relaxroom to the tune of the laboring temperature control. Morning, and I was off again. The radiation meter snarled its death song, louder during each rest break. If I'd been planning to go outside, I would have dropped that plan. Radiation couldn't get through a General Products hull. Nothing else can, either, except visible light.
I spent a bad half hour trying to remember whether one of the puppeteers' customers saw X-rays. I was afraid to call up and ask.
The mass pointer began to show a faint blue blur. Gases thrown outward from the patch. I had to keep changing sunglasses …
Sometime during the morning of the next day I stopped. There was no point in going farther.
* * *
«Beowulf Shaeffer, have you become attached to the sound of my voice? I have other work than supervising your progress.»
«I would like to deliver a lecture on abstract knowledge.»
«Surely it can wait until your return.»
«The galaxy is exploding.»
There was a strange noise. Then: «Repeat, please.»
«Have I got your attention?»
«Yes.»
«Good. I think I know the reason so many sentient races are omnivores. Interest in abstract knowledge is a symptom of pure curiosity. Curiosity must be a survival trait.»
«Must we discuss this? Very well. You may well be right. Others have made the same suggestion, including puppeteers. But how has our species survived at all?»
«You must have some substitute for curiosity. Increased intelligence, maybe. You've been around long enough to develop it. Our hands can't compare with your mouths for tool building. If a watchmaker had taste and smell in his hands, he still wouldn't have the strength of your jaws or the delicacy of those knobs around your lips. When I want to know how old a sentient race is, I watch what he uses for hands and feet.»
«Yes. Human feet are still adapting to their task of keeping you erect. You propose, then, that our intelligence has grown sufficiently to ensure our survival without depending on your hit-or-miss method of learning everything you can for the sheer pleasure of learning.»
«Not quite. Our method is better. If you hadn't sent me to the Core for publicity, you'd never have known about this.»
«You say the galaxy is exploding?»
«Rather, it finished exploding some nine thousand years ago. I'm wearing grade twenty sunglasses, and it's still too bright.
Night came. The control room was a blaze of light. I slept in the relaxroom to the tune of the laboring temperature control. Morning, and I was off again. The radiation meter snarled its death song, louder during each rest break. If I'd been planning to go outside, I would have dropped that plan. Radiation couldn't get through a General Products hull. Nothing else can, either, except visible light.
I spent a bad half hour trying to remember whether one of the puppeteers' customers saw X-rays. I was afraid to call up and ask.
The mass pointer began to show a faint blue blur. Gases thrown outward from the patch. I had to keep changing sunglasses …
Sometime during the morning of the next day I stopped. There was no point in going farther.
* * *
«Beowulf Shaeffer, have you become attached to the sound of my voice? I have other work than supervising your progress.»
«I would like to deliver a lecture on abstract knowledge.»
«Surely it can wait until your return.»
«The galaxy is exploding.»
There was a strange noise. Then: «Repeat, please.»
«Have I got your attention?»
«Yes.»
«Good. I think I know the reason so many sentient races are omnivores. Interest in abstract knowledge is a symptom of pure curiosity. Curiosity must be a survival trait.»
«Must we discuss this? Very well. You may well be right. Others have made the same suggestion, including puppeteers. But how has our species survived at all?»
«You must have some substitute for curiosity. Increased intelligence, maybe. You've been around long enough to develop it. Our hands can't compare with your mouths for tool building. If a watchmaker had taste and smell in his hands, he still wouldn't have the strength of your jaws or the delicacy of those knobs around your lips. When I want to know how old a sentient race is, I watch what he uses for hands and feet.»
«Yes. Human feet are still adapting to their task of keeping you erect. You propose, then, that our intelligence has grown sufficiently to ensure our survival without depending on your hit-or-miss method of learning everything you can for the sheer pleasure of learning.»
«Not quite. Our method is better. If you hadn't sent me to the Core for publicity, you'd never have known about this.»
«You say the galaxy is exploding?»
«Rather, it finished exploding some nine thousand years ago. I'm wearing grade twenty sunglasses, and it's still too bright.