"Aldiss, Brian W - Short Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (Aldiss Brian W)

and the time by which he lived, even when going through the
business of communicating with the earth-bound human race.
He realised he was now moving ahead of Janet, by her
reckoning. It would be interesting to have someone ahead of
him in perception; then he would wish to converse, would
want to go to the labour of it. Although it would rob him of
the sensation that he was perpetually first in the universe, first
everywhere, with everything dewy in that strange light
Marslight! He'd call it that, till he had it classified, the
romantic vision preceding the scientific, with a touch of the
grand permissible before the steadying discipline closed in. Or
then again, suppose they were wrong in their theories, and the
perceptual effect was some freak of the long space journey
itself; supposing time were quantal.... Supposing all time
were quantal. After all, ageing was a matter of steps, not a
smooth progress, for much of the inorganic world as for the
organic.
Now he was standing quite still on the lawn. The glaze was
coming through the grass, making it look brittle, almost
tingeing each blade with a tiny spectrum of light. If his
perceptual time were further ahead than it was now, would
the Marslight be stronger, the Earth more translucent? How
beautiful it would look! After a longer star journey one would
return to a cobweb of a world, centuries behind one in
perceptual time, a mere embodiment of light, a prism. Hun-
grily, he visualised it. But they needed more knowledge.
Suddenly he thought, If I could get on the Venus expedi-
tioni If the Institute's right, I'd be perhaps six, say five and a
halfno, one can't saybut I'd be ahead of Venerean time. I
must go. I'd be valuable to them. I only have to volunteer,
surely.'
He did not notice Stackpole touch his arm in cordial
fashion and go past him into the house. He stood looking at
the ground and through it, to the stoney vales of Mars and the
unguessable landscapes of Venus.
The figures move
Janet had consented to ride into town with Stackpole. He
was collecting his cricket shoes, which had been restudded;
she thought she might buy a roll of film for her camera. The
children would like photos of her and Daddy together. Stand-
ing together.
As the car ran beside trees, their shadows flickered red and
green before her vision. Stackpole held the wheel very capa-
bly, whistling under his breath. Strangely, she did not resent a
habit she would normally have found irksome, taking it as a
sign that he was not entirely at his ease.
"I have an awful feeling you now understand my husband
better than I do," she said.
He did not deny it. "Why do you feel that?"
"I believe he does not mind the terrible isolation he must be