"Rudy Rucker & John Shirley - Pockets" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rucker Rudy)

arms around his knees.
" Ya got any grub on yer, boy?" the man rasped. A UK accent. Or was it Australian?
"UmтАФ" He remembered he had two-thirds of an energy bar of some kind in a
pocket. Probably linty by now, but likely this 'slug wouldn't care. "You want this?"
He tossed over the energy bar and the pocket-slug's eyes flashed as he caught it, f
snatched it out of the air. "Good on ya, boy!" He gnawed on the linty old bar with his call
gums.
It occurred to Wendel that at some point he might regret giving away his only f
But supposedly you didn't need to eat in here. Food was just fun for the mouth, or a bur
extra energy. Right now the scene made him chuckle to himselfтАФthe bubble-rush was glow
in him, made everything seem absurd, cartoonlike, and marvelous.
Between sucking sounds, the 'slug said, "My name's Threakman. Jeremy Threakman.
yer doin."
"I don't know how I'm doing. I'm looking for my dad. Rothman Bell. He's about.
"No need, I know whuh 'e looks like. Seen 'im go through 'ere . . ." Threakman looke
Wendel with his head cocked. A sly look. "Feelin' the 'igh, are ya? Sure'n you are. Stoned
boy? Young fer it."
"I feel somethingтАФwhat is it? What causes it?"
"Why, it's a feelin' of being right there in yerself, beyond all uncertainty about where
might go. For here, yer are all that is, in yerself. And that'll get you 'igh. Or some say. Ot
like me, they say it's the Out-Monkeys that do it."
"The OutтАФwhat?"
"Out-Monkeys," said Threakman. "What I call 'em. Other's call 'em Dream Beetles,
'slug in 'ere used ter call 'em TurtlesтАФsaid 'e saw a Turtle thing with a head like a screw
bottle without the cap and booze pouring out, but 'e was a hardcore alkie. Others they s
more like lizards or Chinese dragons. Dragons, beetles, monkeys, all hairy around the ed
all curlin' out at yerтАФit's a living hole in space, mate, and you push the picture you want o
Me and the smartuns calls 'em Out-Monkeys 'cause they're from outside our world."
"You meanтАФfrom another planet?"
"No, mate, from the bigger universe that this one is kinder inside. They got m
dimensions than we do. They're using DeGroot and the nanomatrixтАФthey give all th
us to pull us in, mate. The Out-Monkeys are drizzlin' pockets down onto us, little paradise b
where yer don't 'ave to breathe nor eat an' yer can fly an' there's an energy that stim-yer-
that part of yer brain, don't ya see. The Out-Monkeys want us all stony in here. Part of thei
game, innit? Come on, show yer somethin'. The Alef. Mayhap yer'll see yer da."
In a single spasmodic motion Threakman was up, flying off in some odd new direc
through the silvery scarves of the enclosing spacesтАФ leaving a rank scent in the air behind
Wendel whipped along after him, remembering not to breathe. Soon, if it could
thought of as soon, they came to a nexus where the images around them thickened up int
incalculable diversity. It was like being at the heart of a city in a surveillance zone w
million monitors, but the images weren't electronic, they were real, and endlessly repeated.
"The Alef has tunnels to all the pockets," said Threakman. "Precious few of us knows a
it."
In some directions, he saw pockets with people writhing togetherтАФ he realized,
embarrassment, that they were copulating. But was that really sex? He made himself
away. In another pocket people were racing around one another in a blur like t
electro-cyclists in the Cage of Death he'd seen at a carnival. Off down the axis of ano
tunnel, people clawed at one another, in a thronging melange of combat; you couldn't tell
from another, so slick was the blood. But the greatest number of the pockets held sol
'slugs, hanging there in self-absorbed pleasure, surrounded by the endless mirror-image