[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Page 74
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
missing persons.
Really, Reuben, a place simply cannot be full of missing persons.
You know what I mean, Miss Thelma. We oughtn t to recruit so close to home.
It isn t safe.
Phooey. Those people are in a dreamless sleep. Just as I was. They d hardly
notice.
Somebody isn t asleep. Somebody tipped off the God Nuts. The evidence seems
to point to that garage man, Hacker.
You d best fetch him in too, hadn t you? Thelma thought a moment. Oh, all
right: him, instead of
Sandra Glass.
Sure, that s easy. People have seen those mysterious visitors at his place.
Now the visitors disappear, and so does he. But what about his wife?
His wife? He s a widower. Now, if that s all settled, Mentamorpha and Prote
really are just about to wake up. I want to be there.
The ring finger of her left hand and the corresponding finger of her right
hand neither of which had ever worn rings were tingling now, in tandem
with two corresponding toes.
Which, she realized, would make her class register complete.
She lotted them all up. Ten finger-persons, and ten toe-persons, yes. In
addition, if she plucked a chord of
file:///C|/3278%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Ian%20Watson%20-%20Converts
.html (105 of 165) [1/17/2005 6:52:02 PM]
Converts two strings (as it were) then this manoeuvre yielded a further ten
changed people, linked to her on a duo-
digital basis: left finger, left toe; right finger, right toe. Then there were
ten more linked on a cross-over pairing: right to left, left to right. Total:
forty. With the next two awakenings, her tribe was definitely full up.
She couldn t have a centaur in her tribe after all. Pity.
But changes were going on all the time. Even now, several more changes were on
the way. So, quite soon, there would have to be another Joiner such as Thelma.
And then another and another. Would they all be linked in turn by a kind of
President? A sort of Olympian Zeus?
It s a new type of clan system, decided Thelma. Each tribe is a colony of
individuals. Like a sponge or a coral. Massed together, we ll form the reef on
which the seas of the world will break in vain!
But I m not the chief of my tribe. I m more like the headdress that a chief
wears. Consisting of exactly forty feathers.
So who does wear the headdress? I don t because I
am the headdress. Ariel doesn t wear it, either. He s one of the feathers.
Maybe nobody wears it. Sponges and corals don t have big chiefs.
|
Go to Contents
|
Chapter 24
Two days later, soon after breakfast time, Ariel received word at the Temple
of Venus that the God Nut snoopers had been captured quietly in a pre-dawn
raid on Hacker s garage. There were six spies in all.
Three males were segregated in one camper with three females sleeping in the
other. Surprised in their bunks, they had been tranquillized, trussed up and
driven back in their own vehicles to the Farm along with Mr Hacker, snatched
from his bed.
As soon as Ariel learnt this, he concentrated his thoughts strongly on Thelma;
and presently she arrived in person, from the nearby Gothic Temple.
Thelma s new home pleased her mightily. With its turrets and gables which
yielded a romantic silhouette from every possible angle; with its circular
gallery underneath a traceried dome; with its enigmatic archways leading into
trompe l oeil halls these were actually small anterooms equipped with camp
Page 75
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
beds and a few toilet essentials the Gothic Temple might have sprung
quintessentially from the finest
Romance of the Week offering stacked in her clapboard house in Fairboro &
She arrived together with Mentamorpha and Prote. Prote s special talent was to
alter his appearance quite quickly to imitate any other human being, though
preferably a female. Mentamorpha s was to imitate
file:///C|/3278%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Ian%20Watson%20-%20Converts
.html (106 of 165) [1/17/2005 6:52:02 PM]
Converts the mind of anybody. She could read all their memories, make use of
all their skills, and behave exactly as they would have behaved.
For the moment, Prote had copied the guise of Thelma. Thus, in effect, two
Thelmas arrived at the temple.
But one could tell them apart on careful inspection, since only the real
Thelma behaved exactly as Thelma should. Prote s gestures, facial expressions
and turns of phrase exposed him, ultimately, as a superficial copy.
Mentamorpha had mimicked Thelma too but psychologically. Or, more exactly,
what she had mimicked was the substratum of Thelma s personality and memories
from before the time the viral drug expanded her horizons. (Mentamorpha
couldn t mimic the new, expanded Thelma because this would have necessarily
included a mental homunculus of Mentamorpha herself, thus leading to the
well-known logical problem of infinite regress & ) Consequently, Mentamorpha
was behaving in a shamed, confused and spinsterly way as though, after years
of chaste sublimation, she had just been publicly raped by an ape. This
abashed demeanour conflicted, rather, with her own body image. For Mentamorpha
was a glamorous peroxide blonde with bobbed hair, a pert turned-up nose,
sultry lips and noteworthy bosoms. It was this body which had derailed her
career as an actress; no one would cast her in any but the most blatant roles.
So, in a sense, three
Thelmas arrived at the temple. One of them was real. One of them looked the
part.
And one of them acted it at least according to the previous script.
Thelma-prime, whose view of the world was larger and more courageous now,
sincerely hoped that her two temporary twins the Look-
Alike one, and the Think-Alike one would be able to function effectively as
a team.
Ariel offered everyone orange juice.
Can t have those God Nuts visiting up here. Goes without saying. One look at
Shetani or Silvester, and they d foam at the mouth. So we ll all have to go
down there for the interrogation. And the I hope
impersonation. Dear Geneva will guard us, just in case they burst their
bonds.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]