"Theodore Sturgeon - Ether Breather" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sturgeon Theodore)

"Fun, is it?" T growled. "Come on, give us the story, or we'll black you out!"
My image said pleadingly: "Please believe us. It's the truth. We 're everywhere."
"What do you look like?" I asked. "Show yourselves as you are!"
"We can't," said the other image. "because we don't `look' like anything. We just . . . are, tha
all."
"We don't reflect light," supplemented my image.
Berbelot and I exchanged a puzzled glance. Berbelot said, "Either somebody is taking us for
ride or we've stumbled on something utterly new and unheard-of."
"You certainly have," said Berbelot's image earnestly. "We've known about you for a lon
timeтАФas you count timeтАФ"
"Yes," the other continued "We knew about you some two hundred of your years ago. We h
felt your vibrations for a long time before that, but we never knew just who you were until then."
"Two hundred yearsтАФ" mused Berbelot. "That was about, the time of the first atomic-power
television sets."
"That's right!" said my image eagerly. "It touched our brain currents and we could see and hea
We never could get through to you until recently, though, when you sent us that stupid thing abo
a seashell."
"None of that, now," I said angrily, while Berbelot chuckled.
"How many of you are there?" he asked them.
 "One, and many. We are finite and infinite. We have no size or shape as you know it. We ju
... are."
We just swallowed that without comment. It was a bit big. "How did you change the program
How are you chang-ing this one?" Berbelot asked.
"These broadcasts pass directly through our brain currents. Our thoughts change them as th
pass. It was impossible before; we were aware, but we could not be heard. This new wave has
us be heard. Its convolutions are in phase with our being."
"How did you happen to pick that particular way of break-ing through?" I asked. "I mean
that wisecracking business."
For the first time one of the imagesтАФBerbelot'sтАФlooked abashed. "We wanted to be liked. W
wanted to come through to you and find you laughing. We knew how. Two hundred years
listening to every single broadcast, public and private, has taught us your language and yo
emotions and your ways of thought. Did we really do wrong?"
"Looks as if we have walked into a cosmic sense of hu-mor," remarked Berbelot to me.
To his image: "Yes, in a way, you did. You lost three huge companies their broadcastin
licenses. You embarrassed ex-ceedingly a man named Griff and a secretary of state. You"тАФ
chuckledтАФ"made my friend here very, very angry. That wasn't quite the right thing to do, now
was it?"
"No," said my image. It actually blushed. "We won't do it any more. We were wrong. We a
sorry."
"Aw, skip it," I said. I was embarrassed myself. "Everybody makes mistakes."
"That is good of you," said my image on the television screen. "We'd like to do something f
you. And you, too, Mr.тАФ"
"Berbelot," said Berbelot. Imagine introducing yourself to a television set!
"You can't do anything for us," I said, "except to stop messing up color televising."
"You really want us to stop, then?" My image turned to Berbelot's. "We have done wrong. W
have hurt their feelings and made them angry."
To us: "We will not bother you again. Good-by!"
"Wait a minute!" I yelped, but I was too late. The view-screen showed the same two figure
but they had lost their peculiar life. They were Berbelot and me. Period.
"Now look what you've done," snapped Berbelot.