"Pohl, Frederik - The Mother Trip" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pohl Frederick)

THE MOTHER TRIPTHE MOTHER TRIP

By Frederik Pohl

Version 1.0


Putting this collection together has made me realize that nearly every story in
it was written, at least in part, in some corner of the world far from my desk
and typewriter. That's not too surprising in some ways, because I have this
habit of doing at least four pages worth of writing wherever I happen to be,
every day, and I do a lot of traveling. It is often easier to work on a short
story than a novel under such circumstances, if only because when you pack a
couple of novel manuscripts into a suitcase you don't have much room left for
clean socks. This one, however, was written right at home. It's true that part
of its setting comes from a marvelous trip over the Cascade Mountains and much
of its incident from a strange weekend I spent with an encounter group in New
Jersey, having my sensitivities elevated and my inhibitions soaked away in the
blood-temperature pool. It was an unsettling sort of experience, a dozen total
strangers opening to each other, but one I am glad I did not miss. Among other
things it brought me a couple of friendships I still treasure.., and, later on,
filling up my daily pages in my office, this story.
It could have been just this way: That the get of Moolkri Mawkri could have
landed in a faster-than-light spaceship resembling an artichoke on the outskirts
of Jackson, Mississippi.
In this version Mawkri gathers her Get-cluster around her broodingly, while
Moolkri assumes the shape of a man. The Get has studied all of the Earth's TV
programs while they were in orbit, and they have picked an average person for
Moolkri to be, not too tall, not too symmetrical, not too dvezhnizt (a term in
their language which relates to the proportion between upper and middle
circumferences). The Get is satisfied with Moolkri's appearance, but all the
same it is pretty funny-looking. They laugh as he exits the spacecraft to
explore.
Moolkri has well assimilated TV lore, and so he knows how to behave in a way
appropriate to his body. He hooks his "thumbs in his "belt, crosses a deserted
bridge, and strides swaggeringly down the light-saturated and totally
uninhabited street.
It does not seem unusual to Moolkri that there should be no one gazing into the
bright shop windows. He does not have a very good grasp of what is usual or
unusual for human beings. It is late at night, and so a human being (or at least
one from another city than Jackson) might find it strange that everything was so
brightly lit. Contrariwise, a human might consider it odd that with every
amenity turned on for shoppers, there was not a single strolling person to he
seen. Moolkri does not realize this is strange. He is aware that sometimes
streets are deserted and sometimes not; he is also aware that sometimes they are
bright and sometimes dark.; he is simply not aware that deserted is not really
compatible with well-lit, but then there is a lot he is not aware of about the
Earth.
So Moolkri swings, gunman wide, his "chaps rustling against each other and his
"bandanna bright against his "neck. He slouches past the People's Cut Rate