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

themselves. And one of these addicts was Dad, floating quite nearby.
"For 'im, mate," said Threakman as Wendel flew off toward his father.
Not quite sure of his aim, he hit Dad with a thudтАФand Dad screamed, thrashing back
him. Stopping himself in space to glare shame and resentment at WendelтАФlike a kid ca
masturbating.
"What are you doing?" demanded Wendel. "You call this research?"
"Okay, you really want to know?" snapped his father. "I'm looking for Mom."
Wendel peered at his father; his Dad's face, here, seemed more like the possibility o
possible Dad facial expressions, crystallized. It was difficult to tell whether he meant
might be bullshit. What was the saying? How do you know an addict is lying? When his
are moving!
But the possibility of seeing Mom made Wendel's heart thud. "You think she's still in h
Seriously, Dad?"
"I think the Out-Monkeys got her. That's what happens, you know. Some of the pockets
upтАФnot up exactly, but anaтАФ"
"To the shape above Flatland," said Wendel.
"Right," said Dad. "We're in their Flatland, relatively speaking. And I want to get up t
and find her."
"But you're just floating around in here. You're on the goddamn nod, Dad. Yo
not looking at all."
"Oh, yes, I am. I'm looking, goddammit. This happens to be just the right spo
stare down through the Alef and up along the Out-Monkeys' tunnel. Not their tunnel, exa
The spot where they usually appear. Where their hull touches us. I'm waiting for them to s
up."
"The Devil in his motorboat," said Wendel with a giggle. The bubble-rush was cree
back up on him. Dad laughed, too. They were thinking of the old joke about the guys in H
standing neck deep in liquid shit and drinking coffee, and one of them says, "Wal, this ain
bad," and the other one says, "Yeah, but wait tillтАФ"
"Here it comes," said Dad, and it wasn't funny anymore, for the space up ahea
them had just opened up like a blooming squash-flower, becoming incalculably larger, all
of perspective broken, and an all but endless vista spreading out, a giant space filled
moving shapes that darted and wheeled like migrating flocks of birds. It was hard to t
straight, for the high of the bubble-space had just gotten much stronger.
"The mothership," said Threakman, who'd drifted down to join them. "Yaaar.
you feel the rush off it? Ahr, but it's good. Hello to yer, there, Da . . ." He gave a deep, l
chuckle. Everything was glistening and wonderful, as perfect as the first instant of Crea
and, as with that moment, chaos waited on the event horizon: chaos and terror.
"Those shapes are the Out-Monkeys?" asked Wendel, his voice sounding high and slo
his ears. "They look like little people."
"Those little things are people," said Dad. "They're the pets."
"Livin' decals on the mothership's 'ull," said Threakman. "Live decorations fer
Out-Monkeys. An ant farm for their window box. Ah, yer'll know it when you really se
Out-Monkey, Wendel. When 'e reaches out through the hull ..."
And then the space around them quivered like gelatin, and the cloud of moving peopl
ahead spiraled in around a shaky, black, living hole in space, a growing thing with fr
fringes, a three-dimensional Mandelbrot formation that, to Wendel, looked like a dan
star-edged monkey made up of other monkeys, like the old Barrel of Monkeys toy he'd
with all the little monkeys hooked together to make bigger monkeys that hooked togethe
make a gigantic monkey, coming on and on: A cross section of a higher-dimensional a
partly shaped by the Rorschach filter of human perception.