"Mission" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tilley Patrick)

I could see that was another one of the hard ones. He rubbed his chin and gave m~ a long look. 'What are you asking me to describe
- my temporal, or non-temporal aspect?'
'Both,' I replied.
He shook his head. 'I can't. It's like trying to describe a rose to a man who's been blind fromn birth. Words are useless to describe its colour amid form. The only way he can receive an impression of the rose is through his other senses. By touching its petals and inhaling its fragrance. You can only understand what we are like in the same way. Not by touch or smell, but by reaching a higher level of awareness. Or if you don't like that word, let's say by enhancing your degree of' perception.'
'That's cheating,' I said. 'Are you trying to tell me that if I'd been there when you stepped out of the landing module I wouldn't have seen you? The shepherds who were watching their flocks saw something. Or so the story goes. Are you really sure you can't tell me what it was?'
He shook his head again. 'You're the one that's trying to cheat, Leo. You want the answers but you're not prepared to make the effort to understand. Remember the story about the man who threw seed on to stony ground? The trick is to ask the right questions. When you do, you'll find that you already know ti* answers.'
'You mean - "Knock and the door 5e opened"?'
He smiled. 'I couldn't have put it b~er myself.'
'Oh, come on,' I insisted. 'Just give me a little hint. If I did have this higher level of awareness, what would the three of you have looked like? In your spacesuits, or whatever.'
He sighed. 'You're a hard man, Leo.' He drank some wine and toyed with his glass for a moment. 'The only way to describe us would be as - luminous beings. Our exact shape would depend on the condition of the observer. The received image is influenced by cultural and racial imprinting, as well as the degree of perception. In other words, you might see us as Persian angels - anatomical absurdities with seventy-two pairs- of wings covered with eight thousand eyes - or something like the board of General Motors but with haboes and white suits.'
'Okay, I get the message,' I said. 'What kind of shape are you in on the other side of the Time Gate?'
The Man gave me a really odd look. As if I'd asked him something near the knuckle. 'I ani that I am,' he replied.
Some answer.
I sat back and finished off my coffee. 'These two Emivoys that you mentioned as having already been through the 'l'ime Gate. Had they visited us before?'
'Several times,' he said. 'They're enshrined in Earth mythology under many names. The Persians knew them as Beshtar and Sorush. Your people know thenu as Michael and Gabriel. Mi -'l)on't tell me, ' I interjected. 'Michael stayed in the command module while you and Gabriel went for the landing. It's in the Book,' I explained. '(iabrieh's the one that broke the good news to your flint her.'

'I don't know whether she saw it like that at the time,' he said. '1
45
remember at one point, life became rather complicated.'
I waved him down. 'One thing at a time. Let's get back to the spacecraft.'
'Leo,' he said. 'Let me give you some advice. Don't get hung up on the hardware. The bongships, the star-sail boats, the transit shells that we're obliged to wear are not really what we're about. It's just a means of getting here. There was a time, in the First and Second Age, when we could move freely between our world and yours. We had no need to shelter behind the Time Gate. But in the Third Age, the Age of Darkness, all that changed. The physical universe is now a very dangerous place.' He paused, searching for the words. 'Perhaps it will give you some idea of what I mean if! tell you that deep space is not the airless void you imagine it to be. To us, the cosmos is like a vast ocean, the galaxies island-continents separated by the deeps - inter-galactic space. The plane of rotation of each galaxy -inter-stellar space - are regarded as seas, encompassing the star-islands. Such as your sun with its necklace of nine planets. The space contained by each star-island and its circling archipelago is called 'the Shallows'. And so on. Michael and Gabriel know much more about this than I do. The point is, before the Age of Darkness, the Deeps, the Seas and the Shallows were crystal clear but now, to an unprotected Celestial, it's like swimming through Iranian crude. And the atmosphere on this planet which, despite all the pollution, you find quite breathable is absolutely unbearable to us. To be trapped in it without the protection o(our transit shells or a host body is like drowning in a mixture of boiling tar and sulphuric acid. Except, of course, we do not breathe, and cannot die. But it would be like chokiё.g to death - for ever.'
I nodded to show that I'd got the picture. 'Nasty. So is that what you call yourselves - Celestials?'
'No,' he replied. 'But that's the nearest we can get using your language.'
'Okay,' I said. 'So, this place you come from - on the other side of the Time Gate?'
'Think of that as the Celestial Empire,' he said. 'But don't be misled by the stereotyped images conjured up by Star Wars. 'I'he Empire is boundless and timeless. It encoruupasses all of creation and all of eternity. It interpenetrates the smallest particle of the physical universe hut is itself tnipretznahle. It is lucre, in this roumuu, within your grasp. Yet it is as far beyond the reach of your mind as Earth is from
the most distant galaxy still to be discovered by your astronomers. Many of your most brilliant philosophers have dismissed it as an illusion but it is, in fact, the ultimate reality.'
'It also sounds like the ultimate paradox,' I said. 'Let me check that I've got this straight. There are two universes . .
He shook his head. 'No. The Celestial Empire contains nine universes. Seven of them lie beyond the Time Gate through which I came. Collectively, they are known as The World Above. The other two space-time universes are known as The World Below. The Cosmos, the physical univ~se w~hieh . you inhabit, and the Netherworld - '
I cut in to gain some breathin~ sp~.'The Netherworld. . . ?'
The Man nodded. 'Yes. A mi~or-image of the Cosmos, but fashioned from anti-matter. We also refer to it as the First Universe. It can only be entered through what your Earth astronomers call the Black Holes.'
The concept of a mirror-universe composed of anti-matter was not unfamiliar. The idea had been kicked around by physicists for several decades. It was only the name that was new. Even so, I could not accept the fact of its existence with the same ease with which The Man had dispensed the information. Those of us who gave any thought to the matter were still trying to grapple with the logistical problems involved in the creation of our own apparently limitless universe. Yet here I was, confronted with eight more of the goddamn things. It was too much to handle.
The Man eyed me and smiled. 'You book worried.'
'Not really,' I replied. 'I think what my system needs is another shot ofcaffein.' I went into the kitchen, turned on the percolator then Sl)Oke to him through the open doorway. 'Let me recap that last bit to help me picture it in my mind. 'ihe space occupied by this planet, the solar system, the stars and the galaxies beyond is only the second of nine separate universes . . . ?'
"I'hat's right,' he said. 'But don't waste time trying to construct a tour-dimensional niodel out in your mind. This is sonuuething that the concept ual processes of the human brain is not equipped to handle.'
~\ou mean, because the sevent universes beyond the 'I'ime Gate are nuon-d irpcnsional and non-temporal,' I repl red. 'Irving to work out in my logic-hound mind how, if there were no dimensions, you could tell where one umiiverse ended and the next began. 'Ihe answer is, of course, we can't - but Celestials can. It was, as he had warnued, a
~1 7
conceptual problem that could not be resolved by the conscious part of my brain whose sole function was to deal with external reality. Rut this was something I did not fully understand until much later. At that moment, my brain hurt and it showed.
He eyed me sympathetically. 'if you need to give this thing form, just think of it as a symbolic, multi-level pyramid with the First Universe at the bottom and the Ninth at the top.'
I nodded gratefully and returned to the percolator as the boiling water started to bubble through the ground coffee. 'Which one do you come from?' I asked, as I returned to my seat facing him.
'The Ninth,' he said, with disarming simplicity.
I'm sure there was a lot more he could have told me about the set-up in the World Above but you'll just have to accept, as I had to, that knowledge of the Empire's internal organisation is not necessary in order for you to be able to understand the rest of' this story.
'Let me ask you something else,' I said. 'I'm coming round to the idea that it's impossible for me to visualise the World Above, but how do you see ours? Is your perception of external reality very different from the images my brain receives when I open my eyes in the morning?'
He nodded soberly. 'Very different . - -'
'And you're going to tell me that it's too complicated to explain,' I said.
He shrugged. 'All I can say is that I have "double-vision." My ternporalaspect is equipped with different levels of sense-perception that allows my meta-psyche, the Celestial "me", to receive a visual impression olthe universe that would make no sense to you whatever. At the same time, by dropping into a lower gear, I am also able to see the world that you think you "see".' He paused, then added smilingly. 'The only difference is that my perception of external reality may not be quite as rosy, or indeed as clouded, as yours.'
'That's what makes life bearable,' I replied, feeling the need to score one for mankind in general. 'Okay, let's get hack to the mission. The three ofyou came looking for these - colonists. What kind ofan operation were they running here?'
"l'hey were seeding the prime. Iniplamititig the genetic matrices from which all l~fC t hroughout the cosmos springs.'
'So does t hat mean you made us, like it says in t he Book of Genesis?' I asked.
'Not exactly. Our people were involved in the development ofani
48