"A. E. Van Vogt - The Silkie" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Vogt A E)

instead of the five to which, for many centuries, human beings had limited their awareness, the Silkie
could record 184 different kinds of sense impressions over a wide range of intensity.

The result was an immense amount of internal 'noise' as stimulation poured incessantly in upon him. From
his earliest days, control of what his sense receptors recorded had been the principal objective of his
training and education.

The water flowed rhythmically through his gills as Cemp swam with the others through the watery
fairyland of a warm tropical sea. As he looked ahead, he saw that the water universe was changing
because of their approach. The coral was a new, creamier color. Ten thousand sea worms had
withdrawn their bright heads into their tiny holes. Presently, as the group passed, they began to come out
again. The coral turned orange, then purple and orange, then other shades of colors and combinations.
And all this was but one tiny segment of the submarine landscape.

A dozen fish in blues and greens and purples darted up the canyon. Their wild beauty was appealing.
They were an old life form, Nature-evolved, untouched by the magic of the scientific knowledge that had
finally solved so many of the mysteries of life. Cemp reached with webbed fingers for a fish that darted
close to him. It whirled away in a flurry of tiny water currents. Cemp grinned happily, and the warm
water washed into his open mouth тАФ so far had he softened.

He was already smaller. There had been a natural shrinkage from the tense, bony Silkie body. The newly
forming muscles were contracted, and the now internalised bone structure was down to a length of seven
feet from its space maximum of ten.
Of the thirty-nine V's who had come out to help persuade Cemp to board the ship, thirty-one, he
learned by inquiry, were among the common variant types. The easiest state for them to be in was the fish
condition in which they lived. They could be humans for brief periods, and they could be Silkies for
periods that varied with these particular persons from a few hours to a week or so. All thirty-nine had
some control of energy in limited amounts.

Of the remaining eight, three were capable of controlling very considerable energy, one could put up
barriers to energy, and four could be breathers for extended periods of time.

They were all intelligent beings, as such things were judged. But Cemp, who could detect on one or the
other of his numerous receptor systems subtle body odors and temperatures in water and out and could
read meaning into the set of bone and muscle, sensed from each of these a strong emotional mixture of
discontent, anger, petulance, and something even more intense тАФ hatred. As he nearly always did with
V's, Cemp swam close to the nearest. Then, using a particularly resistant magnetic force line as a carrier
тАФ it held its message undistorted for only a few feet тАФ he superimposed the question 'What's your
secret?'

The V was momentarily startled. The reflex that was triggered into picking up the message was so on the
ready that it modulated the answer on to a similar force line, and Cemp had the secret.
 Cemp grinned at the effectiveness of his stratagem, pleased that he could now force a conversation. He
communicated. 'No one threatens V's individually or collectively. So why do you hate?'

'Ifeel threatened!' was the sullen reply.

Since I know you have a wife тАФ from your secret тАФ do you also have children?'

'Yes.'