"Gene Wolfe - Talk of Mandrakes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

Though tempted to nod, Peak was not sure he understood. "Today I was
going to ride the mon to Urban Cee-Cee and try to get a ride from there to keep my
appointment with you. I thought with the pass you sent me, one of the people
working at Cee-Cee might take me. Only the mons are down, so I got a man named
Ram Boardman to drive me. He'd like more than anything to get in here, just for a
minute or two, so he could say he's been inside. I promised I'd try."

"I assume he's not involved in extraterrestrial biology?"

"He's an exec, I think. He's got an exec car."

"I'll tell the guards to admit him later. I doubt that we want him standing
around while we talk shop. Have you read my report?"

Peak shook his head. "They haven't released it yet. Maybe they never will.
There was a summary on the news, but I don't know how good it was."

They turned a corner, and Selim opened a heavy metal door. "Welcome to my
parlor," he said.

There were lab benches and scanscopes, things that looked like plants and
things in rectangular temperglass cases that did not look much like animals.
Dominating the laboratory was a wall of temperglass; behind it, a small heap of
blue-gray matter that scarcely seemed alive.

Selim led Peak toward it. "That is the focus of my collection, the most
important specimen I brought back and a form of life more wonderful than anything
Earth boasts. Do we begin with it or work up to it? You choose."

Desperately afraid they would be interrupted, Peak said, "Begin with it, please,
Doctor."
 "Good. I will begin by telling you that like many other things you see here it is
neither plant nor animal as we understand those categories. Here's a young one."
Selim pointed toward a plant that resembled an African violet, save that it was black.
"It has leaves, as you see, spread areas for the absorption of sunlight. It even puts
down roots for such moisture and nourishment as it can obtain from the exhausted
soil in which it grows."

"I see." Peak rubbed his chin.

"But as it matures and stores enough energy to begin its reproductive cycle,
its structure exhibits less and less organization. It now utilizes light only poorly. It is
time for it to flower. You must see that for yourself. And for you to see it, it must
see you and not see me. That glass is preventing it from seeing either of us. For the
present, it perceives by ultraviolet, which is blocked by glass."

Selim walked to the edge of the temperglass wall and pressed a button. The
wall rose swiftly and silently. "Go in, Doctor Peak. You'll still be able to hear me in
there."