"Dick, Philip K - The Unteleported Man (uncut)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dick Phillip K)

At sight of him the image, the Omar Jones thing, stopped. Warily, as if surprised, it regarded himЧat least seemed to; impossibly, the TV replica of the colony president fixed its attention as rigidly on him as he in return found himself doing. Both of them, caught in an instinctive, fully alert vigil, neither able to look away even for a fraction of an instant . . . as if, Rachmael thought, our lives, the physical preservation of both of us, has cataclysmically and without warning become jeopardized.
And neither of us, he realized as he stared unwinkingly at the TV image of Omar Jones, can escape; we're both snared. Until or unless one of us canЧcan do what?
Blurred, now, as he felt himself sink into numbed fatigue, the two remorseless eyes of the TV figure began to blend. The eyes shifted, came together, superimposed until all at once, locked, they became a clearly defined single eye the intensity of which appalled him; a wet, smoldering greatness that attracted light from every source, drew illumination and authority from every
direction and dimension, confronted him, and any possibility of looking away now was gone.
From behind him Gretchen Borbman's voice sounded. "You see, don't you? Some of the paraworlds areЧ" She hesitated, perhaps wanting to tell him in such a manner as to spare him; she wanted him to know, but with the least pain possible. "Чhard to detect at first," she finished, gently. Her hand, soothing, comforting, rested on his shoulder; she was drawing him away from the image on the TV screen, the oozing cyclopean entity that had ceased its speeded-up harangue and, in silence, emanated in his direction its diseased malevolence.
"This one," Rachmael managed to say hoarsely, "has a description, too? A code-identification?"
"This," Gretchen said, "is reality."
"Paraworld BlueЧ"
Turning him around by physical force to face her, Gretchen said, stricken, " 'Paraworld Blue'? Is that what you see? On the TV screen? I don't believe itЧthe aquatic cephalopod with one working eye? No; I just don't believe it."
Incredulous, Rachmael said, "I . . . thought you saw it. Too."
"No!" She shook her head violently, her face now hardened, masklike; the change in her features came to him initially, in the first particle of a second, as a mere ideaЧand then the actual jagged carving of old, shredding wood replaced the traditional, expected flesh, wood burned, carbonized as if seared both to injure it and to create fright in him, the beholder: an exaggerated travesty of organic physiognomy that grimaced in a fluidity, a mercury-like flux so that the irreal emotions revealed within the mask altered without cease, sometimes, as he watched, several manifesting themselves at once and merging into a configuration of affect which could not exist in any humanЧnor could it be read.
Her actualЧor rather her normally perceivedЧfeatures, by a slow process, gradually re-emerged. The mask sank down, hidden, behind. It remained, of course, still there, but at least no longer directly confronting him. He was glad of that; relief passed through him, but then it, too, like the sight of the scorched-wood mask, sank out of range and he could no longer recall it.
"Whatever gave you the idea," Gretchen was saying, "that I saw anything like that? No, not in the slightest." Her hand, withdrawn from his shoulder, convulsed; she moved away from him, as if retreating down a narrowing tube, farther and fatally, syphoned off from his presence like a drained insect, back toward the kitchen and the dense pack of others.
"Type-basics," he said to her, appealing to her, trying to catch onto her and hold her. But she continued to shrink away anyhow. "Isn't it still possible that only a projection from the unconsciousЧ"
"But your projection," Gretchen said, in a voice raptor-like, sawing, "is unacceptable. To me and to everybody else."
"What do you see?" he asked, finally. There was almost no sight of her now.
Gretchen said, "I'm scarcely likely to tell you, Mr. ben Applebaum; you can't actually expect that, now, after what you've said."
There was silence. And then, by labored, unnaturally retarded degrees, a groaning noise came from the speaker of the television set; the noise at last became intelligible speech, at the proper pitch and rate: his categories of perception had again achieved a functioning parallel with the space-time axis of the image of Omar Jones. Or had the progression of the image resumed as before? Time had stopped or the image had stopped, or perhaps both . . . or was there such a thing as time at all? He tried to remember, but found himself unable to; the falling off of his capacity for abstract thoughtЧwasЧwhatЧwasЧ
He did not know.
Something looked at him. With its mouth.
It had eaten most of its own eyes.

12

People who are out of phase in time, Sepp von Einem thought caustically to himself, ought to be dead. Not preserved like bugs in amber. He glanced up from the encoded intel-repo and watched with distaste his mysteriouslyЧand rather repellentlyЧgifted proleptic co-worker, Gregory Gloch, in his clanking, whirring anti-prolepsis chamber; at the moment, the thin, tall, improperly hunched youth talked silently into the audio receptor of his sealed chamber, his mouth twisting as if composed of some obsolete plastic, not convincingly flesh-like. The mouth-motions, too, lacked authenticity; far too slow, von Einem observed, even for Gloch. The fool was slowing down. However, the memory spools of the chamber would still collect everything said by Gloch, at whatever rate. And the transmission subsequently would of course be at proper time . . . although, of course, the frequency would be abysmal, probably doubled. At the thought of the screeching which lay ahead, von Einem groaned.
His groan, received by the sensitive input audio system of the anti-prolepsis chamber, became processed: recorded at twenty inches of iron oxide audio tape a second it whipped in retrograde to rewind, then released itself at six inches a second to be carried to the earphones well fixed to Gloch's bony head. Presently Gloch responded to his reception of his superior's groan with characteristic eccentricity. His cheeks puffed out; his face turned red as he held his breath. And at the same time he grinned vacuously, his head lolling, turning himself into a parody of a brain-damaged defectiveЧa double parody, because it was of course his own fantastic mentational processes which constituted the actual target of his lampoon. Disgusted, von Einem looked away, gritted his near-priceless custom-fashioned teeth, returned to his scrutiny of the intel-repo material which had newly been made available to him.
"I'm Bill Behren," the tinny mechanical voice of the intel-repo transport announced cheerfully. "Operator of fly 33408. Now, as you may or may not remember, fly 33408 is a real winner. I mean it really gets in there and tackles its job and really gathers up the stuff, the real hot stuff. I've personally been operator for, say, fifty flies . . . but in all this time, none has really performed true-blue like this little fella. I think heЧor it, whatever they are these daysЧdeserves a vote of thanks from us all involved in this highly delicate work we do. Right, Herr von Einem?" Operator of housefly 33408 Bill Behren paused hopefully.
"The vote of thanks," von Einem said, "goes to you, Mr. Behren, for your compound eyes."
"How about that," operator Behren rambled on oozingly. "Well, I think we're all inspired byЧ"
"The data," von Einem said. "As to the activity at the UN Advance-weapons Archives. What specifically is meant by their code number variation three of that time-warping construct they're so devoted to?" Queer for, he thought to himself; the UN wep-x personnel probably take turns going to bed with it.
"Well, sir," operator Bill Behren of fly 33408 answered vigorously, "variation three appears to be a handy-dandy little portable pack unit in the ingenious shape of a tin of chocolate-flavored psychic energizers."
On the video portion of the intel-repo playback system a wide-angle shot of the portable pack appeared; von Einem glanced toward Gloch in his whirring anti-prolepsis chamber to see if the hunched, grimacing youth was receiving this transmission. Gloch, however, obviously lagged at least fifteen minutes behind, now; it would be some time before his synchronizing gear brought this video image to him. And no way to speed it up; that would defeat the chamber's purpose.
"Did I say 'chocolate-flavored'?" Behren droned on, in agitation. "I intended to say 'chocolate-covered.' "
And with such weapons artifacts as this, von Einem reflected, the UN expects to survive. Of course, this assumed that the intel-repo were accurate.
His inquiry into the certainty of fly 33408's information brought an immediate reaction from operator Behren.
"There are just plain virtually no houseflies as intelligent as this; I give you no niddy, Herr von Einem, no niddy at all. And here's the real substance of what 33408 has captured via his multipartis receptors: I suggest you prepare for this, as it's overwhelming." Behren cleared his throat importantly. "Ever hear of ol' Charley Falks?"
"No," von Einem said.
"Think back to your childhood. When you were, say, eight years old or maybe a little more. Recall a backyard and you playing, and ol' Charley Falks leaning over the fence andЧ"
"This is what your verfluchte fly brought back from the UN Advance-weapons Archives?" Time for a replacement of both Behren and his dipterous insect, both of them with one arboreal, American orthopterous katydid; it could carry twice the minned receptors and recording spools of 33408 and probably would possess the same brain-convolutions as Behren and his housefly put together. Von Einem felt gloomy; in fact his depression bordered on despair. At least Theo Ferry managed to handle the tricky situation at Whale's Mouth effectivelyЧin contrast to this. And that, more than anything else, counted.
Effectively except for the unhappy weevils and their destroyed, ridiculous crypto-perceptions. The old comrades back in 1945 would have known how to dispatch those Unmфnner, von Einem thought to himself with irritable satisfaction. It's a clear sign of genetic decay to be possessed by such subrealities, he brooded. Inferior type-basics overwhelming weak, unstable character-structures; degenerate idioplasm involved causally, beyond doubt.
"Ol' Charley Falks," operator Behren said, "is the individual back in your childhood days who more than any other human being formed your ontological nature. What you have been throughout your adult life depends absolutely, in total essence, on what ol' CharleyЧ"
"Then," von Einem said witheringly, "why is it that I fail to recall his existence?"
"The UN wep-x tacticians," operator Behren said, "have not as yet placed him there."

Within his anti-prolepsis membraneЧthe environment manufactured by Krupp und Sohnen years ago which permitted him to collaborate with the conventionally time-oriented personalities linked indirectly to himЧthe warped, inspired protщgщ of Sepp von Einem contemplated the message-packets discharged at intervals by the data-storing houses of his intricate mechanism. As always, he felt weary; the release of stimuli came too frequently for his overtaxed metabolism . . . the adjusting of periodic discharge control gate lay unfortunately outside his manual reach.
What reached him, at the moment, consisted of what seemed the most miserable idiocy he had ever encountered; bewildered, he attempted to focus his depleted attention on it, but only ill-formed fragments of the intel-repo material constellated for his mentational scrutiny.
". . . fettered fetus of homemade apples lurching . . . searching . . . something like pataradical outfits of lace. Iron beds of red hot sabratondea flashes jut jib FRIBЧ"
Resignedly, Gregory Gloch listened on helplessly, wondering what transistorized turret-control of the chamber had gone astray this time.
". . . medicine ice
"man.