JК
World Of Ptavvs :: Нивен Ларри
Страница: 78 из 127Not only was distance against him; thedifference in velocities was even more of a barrier. A slight relativistic difference in time rates could make communication impossible, even between two thrints.
He turned his attention back to the cards. The pilot, who was English, called this game Patience. It was well named. Kzanol was learning patience the hard way. The floor of the lounge was littered with scraps of torn plastic; but this one deck had already survived ten lost games. It was the last deck on board.
Growling deep in his throat, like the carnivore he was, Kzanol scraped the cards together and shuffled them. He was learning coordination, too. And he had learned something about himself: he would not let a slave see him cheating at cards. He had cheated once, and the pilot had somehow guessed. He would not cheat again.
Kzanol jumped. Another one! This one was too far to the side to control, but easily dose enough to sense. And yet… the image had a fuzziness that had nothing to do with distance. As if the slave were asleep. But… different.
For half an hour it stayed within reach. In that time Kzanol satisfied himself that there was no other slave on board. He did not think of another thrint. He would have recognized the taste of a thrint command.
At six hundred hours the next morning, Greenberg's ship turned around. Three minutes later the Golden Circle did the same. Anderson found the prints in the scope camera when he woke up: two lights which stretched slowly into bright lines, then contracted with equal deliberation into somewhat brighter points.
The time passed slowly. Garner and Anderson were already deep in a tournament which they played on the viewer screen: a rectangular array of dots to be connected by lines, with victory going to the player who completed the most squares.
Almost every day they raised the stakes.
On the morning of the last day Garner got back to even. At one point he had been almost eleven thousand dollars in debt. "See?" he said. "You don't give up all your pleasures as you get older."
"Just one," Anderson said thoughtlessly.
"More than that," Garner admitted. "My taste buds have been wearing out for, lo, these many years. But I guess someday someone will find a way to replace them. Just like my spinal cord. That wore out too."
"Wore out? You mean it wasn't an accident? The nerves just died?"
"Just went into a coma would be more like it."
A swift change of subject was in order.
He turned his attention back to the cards. The pilot, who was English, called this game Patience. It was well named. Kzanol was learning patience the hard way. The floor of the lounge was littered with scraps of torn plastic; but this one deck had already survived ten lost games. It was the last deck on board.
Growling deep in his throat, like the carnivore he was, Kzanol scraped the cards together and shuffled them. He was learning coordination, too. And he had learned something about himself: he would not let a slave see him cheating at cards. He had cheated once, and the pilot had somehow guessed. He would not cheat again.
Kzanol jumped. Another one! This one was too far to the side to control, but easily dose enough to sense. And yet… the image had a fuzziness that had nothing to do with distance. As if the slave were asleep. But… different.
For half an hour it stayed within reach. In that time Kzanol satisfied himself that there was no other slave on board. He did not think of another thrint. He would have recognized the taste of a thrint command.
At six hundred hours the next morning, Greenberg's ship turned around. Three minutes later the Golden Circle did the same. Anderson found the prints in the scope camera when he woke up: two lights which stretched slowly into bright lines, then contracted with equal deliberation into somewhat brighter points.
The time passed slowly. Garner and Anderson were already deep in a tournament which they played on the viewer screen: a rectangular array of dots to be connected by lines, with victory going to the player who completed the most squares.
Almost every day they raised the stakes.
On the morning of the last day Garner got back to even. At one point he had been almost eleven thousand dollars in debt. "See?" he said. "You don't give up all your pleasures as you get older."
"Just one," Anderson said thoughtlessly.
"More than that," Garner admitted. "My taste buds have been wearing out for, lo, these many years. But I guess someday someone will find a way to replace them. Just like my spinal cord. That wore out too."
"Wore out? You mean it wasn't an accident? The nerves just died?"
"Just went into a coma would be more like it."
A swift change of subject was in order.