JК
World Of Ptavvs :: Нивен Ларри
Страница: 38 из 127Kzanol was notforced to lower his mental shield all at once. He chose to do so, and he paid for it. It was like looking into an arc lamp from a foot away. Nowhere in the Thrintun universe would the telepathic noise have been that intense. The slave worlds never held this heavy an overpopulation; and the teeming masses of the Thrintun worlds kept their mind shields up in public.
Kzanol reeled from the pain. His reaction was immediate and automatic.
STOP TRINKING AT ME! he roared at the bellowing minds of Topeka Kansas.
In the complex of mental hospitals still called Menninger's, thousands of doctors and nurses and patients heard the command. Hundreds of patients eagerly took it as literal and permanent. Some became stupid and cured. Others went catatonic. A few who had been harmlessly irresponsible became dangerously so. A handful of doctors became patients, a mere handful, but the loss of their services compounded the emergency when the casualties began pouring in from downtown. Menninger's was miles from Topeka Police Headquarters.
In the little room, everyone jerked like hooked fish.
Then, all but Kzanol/Greenberg, they stopped moving.
Their faces were empty. They were idiots.
In the first instant of the mental blast, Kzanol/Greenberg's mental shield went up with an almost auilible clang. A roaring noise reverberated through his mind for minutes. When, he could think again, he still didn't dare drop the mind shield.
There was a thrint on Earth.
The guards at the door now squatted or sat like rag dolls. Kzanol/Greenberg pulled cigarettes from a dark blue shirt pocket and lit one, from the burning butt between Masney's lips, incidentally saving Masney a nasty burn. He sat and smoked while he thought about the other thrint.
Item: That thrint would see him as a slave.
Item: He, Kzanol, had a working mind shield. That might convince the thrint, whoever he was, that he, Kzanol, was a thrint in a human body. Or it might not. If it did, would the other thrint help? Or would he regard Kzanol/Greenberg as a mere ptavv, a Powerless thrint?
In ugly fact, Kzanol/Greenberg was a ptavv. He had to get his body back before the other found him.
And with that, incredibly, he stopped thinking about the other thrint. There was every reason to wonder about him.
Kzanol reeled from the pain. His reaction was immediate and automatic.
STOP TRINKING AT ME! he roared at the bellowing minds of Topeka Kansas.
In the complex of mental hospitals still called Menninger's, thousands of doctors and nurses and patients heard the command. Hundreds of patients eagerly took it as literal and permanent. Some became stupid and cured. Others went catatonic. A few who had been harmlessly irresponsible became dangerously so. A handful of doctors became patients, a mere handful, but the loss of their services compounded the emergency when the casualties began pouring in from downtown. Menninger's was miles from Topeka Police Headquarters.
In the little room, everyone jerked like hooked fish.
Then, all but Kzanol/Greenberg, they stopped moving.
Their faces were empty. They were idiots.
In the first instant of the mental blast, Kzanol/Greenberg's mental shield went up with an almost auilible clang. A roaring noise reverberated through his mind for minutes. When, he could think again, he still didn't dare drop the mind shield.
There was a thrint on Earth.
The guards at the door now squatted or sat like rag dolls. Kzanol/Greenberg pulled cigarettes from a dark blue shirt pocket and lit one, from the burning butt between Masney's lips, incidentally saving Masney a nasty burn. He sat and smoked while he thought about the other thrint.
Item: That thrint would see him as a slave.
Item: He, Kzanol, had a working mind shield. That might convince the thrint, whoever he was, that he, Kzanol, was a thrint in a human body. Or it might not. If it did, would the other thrint help? Or would he regard Kzanol/Greenberg as a mere ptavv, a Powerless thrint?
In ugly fact, Kzanol/Greenberg was a ptavv. He had to get his body back before the other found him.
And with that, incredibly, he stopped thinking about the other thrint. There was every reason to wonder about him.