"Alan Dean Foster - Flinx 3 - Orphan Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

glass.
But since logic insisted the event could have been nothing other than on accident, it was so ruled
by the experts called upon to produce an explanation-experts who did not have access to the same
beauty which had so totally bedazzled the now-vaporized Endrickson. ...

Flinx blinked, awakening from the Janus jewel's tantalizing loveliness. It continued to pulse with
its steady, natural yellow luminescence.
"Did yon ever see one before?" Challis inquired.
"No. I've heard of them, though. I know enough to recognize one."
Challis must have touched another concealed switch because a low-intensity light sprang to life at
the table's edge. Fumbling with a drawer built into the table, the merchant then produced a small
boxy affair which resembled an abstract carving of a bird in flight, its wings on the downbeat. It
was designed to fit on a human head. A few exposed wires and modules broke the device's otherwise
smooth lines.
"Do you know what this is?" the merchant asked,
Flinx confessed he did not.
"It's the operator's headset," Challis explained slowly, placing it over his stringy hair. "The
headset and the machinery encapsulated in that table transcribe the thoughts of the human mind and
convey them to the jewel. The jewel has a certain property."
Challis intoned "property" with the sort of spiritual reverence most men would reserve for
describing their gods or mistresses.
The merchant ceased fumbling with unseen controls and with the headset. He folded his hands before
his squeezed out paunch and stared at the crystal. "I'm concentrating on something now," he told
his absorbed listener softly. "It takes a little training, though some can do without it."
As Flinx watched raptly, the particles in the jewel's center began to rearrange themselves. Their
motion was no longer random, and it was clear that Challis' thoughts were directing the
realigmnent. Here was something about which rumor abounded, but which few except the very rich and
privileged had actually seen.
"The larger the crystal," Challis continued, obviously straining to produce some as yet unknown
result, "the more colors present in the colloid and the more valuable the stone. A single color is
the general rule. This stone contains two and is one of the largest and finest in existence,
though even small stones are rare.
"There are stones with impurities present which create three- and four-color displays, and one
stone of five-color content is known. You would not believe who owns it, or what is done with it."
Flinx watched as the colors within the crystal's center began to assume semisolid shape and form
at Challis' direction. "No one," the merchant continued, "has been able to synthesize the
oleaginous liquid in which the colored particulate matter drifts suspended. Once a crystal is
broken, it is impossible to repair. Nor can the colloid be transferred in whole or in part to a
new container. A break in the intricate crystal-liquid formation destroys the stone's individual
piezoelectric potential. Fortunately the crystal is as hard as corundum, though nowhere near as
strong as artificials like duralloy."
Though the outlines shifted and trembled constantly, never quite firmly fixed, they took on the
recognizable shapes of several persons. One appeared to be an exaggeratedly Junoesque woman. Of
the others, one was a humanoid male and the third something wholly alien. A two-sided chamber rose
around them and was filled with strange objects that never held their form for more than a few
seconds. Although their consistency fluctuated, the impression they conveyed did not. Flinx saw
quite enough to turn his stomach before everything within the crystal dissolved once again to a
cloud of glowing dust.
Looking up and across from the crystal he observed that the merchant had removed the headpiece and
was wiping the perspiration from his high forehead with a perfumed cloth. Illuminated by the