"Doris Piserchia - A Billion Days of Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piserchia Doris)

A Billion Days of Earth
Author: Doris Pierschia
Copyright: November 1976
Ebook version 1.0 (proofed)
prologue
Had it just then been born? The creature didn't know. It crawled up out of the volcanic crater, hung there on the lip and
stared about It saw a small thing hopping in the tum-bleweeds at the foot of the mountain.
"Help!" it cried.
The animal in the tumbleweeds came to a halt with its short, broad ears perked. It was a tare and it was a descen-dant
of an animal called a rabbit that had been extinct for a billion days. Long-legged, brown-furred, it weighed
approx-imately twenty-five pounds. It was subnormal in intelligence because it wanted to find sense in this world of
Three Mil-lion, A.D.
"Who calls?" The tare had sufficient intelligence to speak, but he had never before communicated with anything but
another tare.
"Who calls?"
The tare was puzzled. "This isn't Echo Valley so why do my words come back to me?"
"Me?"
"You're a silly echo, wherever you come from."
"You?"
"I, you, he, we, you, they," said the tare. "I'm here, you're there, we're both somewhere. Are you up in that dead
volcano? Who are you?"
There was a pause, then, "I am I. I want. I am in need."
Grinning up at the mountain, the tare said, "Ask and re-ceive, ignorant child."
"Take my heart that we shall be one."
"Certainly. Would it be to your liking if I trundled up the side of your happy home and flung myself over?"
"That will not be necessary. I will come to you."
The tare saw a thin length of silver slide over the high lip of the mountain and flow downward, and his amusement at
the situation changed to uneasiness. "Good Lord, you re-ally do live in that hole. I think I'll get out of here."
"You would abandon me, then, a babe in the woods?"
Pausing to look back, the tare saw more of the strange material edge over the mountain. He gasped and threw his paws
over his eyes. "The sheen! I can't see!" For only a mo-ment was he blinded. "Now I'm all right," he said in relief. "But
you're still too bright. You look exactly like a stream of mercury."
There was a great deal of the creature. Its front end was already in the grass, but still it poured from the volcano in a
steady flow.
"I like that word of yours," it said, as it advanced. Wherever its words originated, they came from no mouth or any
other opening. All of it seemed to be speaking and the words were real sounds. It talked without a voice box, it
thought without experience, it existed without purpose. Or so the tare assumed.
"I like that word of yours," the creature said again. "It touches an inner chord within me. I will make it my name. From
this moment onward, I am Sheen."
"Don't come any closer," said the tare. "To what genus do you belong?"
"The genus of Sheen. I have love for you."
The tare was flattered in spite of his fright. "What a crazy thing you are. We're not the same, so how can you love
me?"
"I don't know. You came and your coming inspired me to wakefulness. My thoughts are directed toward you."
Again the tare was amused. This creature was naive, be-haved as if it had just been born. "You can't focus your
af-fections on me. You have to set your sights on something like yourself. By the way, what are you besides Sheen?"
"I am I."
"What kind of answer is that?"
"There is much to learn, but I am quick. I love you."
"There you go again. I'm a tare while you're a liquid-solid thing, the likes of which I never saw before, and you can't