"Zelazny, Roger - The Force that Through The Circuit Drives The Current" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

The Force That Through the Circuit Drives the Current
Roger Zelazny
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I donТt like this story. ItТs short, though, and itТs here for a special reason. A few times in my life I have written something before 1 should have; that is, it was on the back burner and I pulled it and dished it up before it was fully cooked.

In this case, I was playing with a number of ideas involving artificial intelligence, trauma and control for what I hoped would be a neatly realized, well-developed story of some length. I was living in Baltimore at the time, and that year Fred Pohl was to be guest of honor at Balticon, a local science fiction convention. I was invited to interview him as a part of the program. 1 did this thing, and afterward he graciously took Judy and me and a friend to dinner at MillerТs, one of my favorite local restaurants.

During the course of things he asked me for a story for a collection he was assembling. I agreed readily, but my mind was filled with the notions recited above. So I decided to use them, and I wrote this story. As I said, I was not totally pleased with its bare-bones displaying of some of these thoughts. But a curious thing happened. The real story began to crystallize while I was doing this oneЧa story much too long, I could see, for me to knock off in time for FredТs deadline. The real story was to be Home Is the Hangman, one of my better novellas. This story, then, is yet another variation: It was a finger exercise, a story the writing of which served to produce something better than itself. If it hadnТt been for Balticon and the Chateaubriand at MillerТs, the following tale would never have existed, and I donТt know what would have become ofЕHangman.

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Е And I had been overridden by a force greater than my own.

Impression of a submarine canyon: a giant old riverbed; a starless, moonless night; fog; a stretch of quicksand; a bright lantern held high in its midst.

I had been moving along the Hudson Canyon, probing the sediment, reaching down through the muck and the sludge, ramming in a corer and yanking it back again. I analyzed and recorded the nature, the density, the distribution of the several layers within my tube; then I would flush it, move to the next likely spot and repeat the performance; if the situation warranted, I would commence digging a holeЧthe hard wayЧand when it was done, I would stand on its bottom and take another core; generally, the situation did not warrant it: there were plenty of ready-made fissures, crevasses, sinkholes. Every now and then I would toss a piece of anything handy into the chopper in my middle, where the fusion kiln would burn it to power; every now and then I would stand still and feed the fire and feel the weight of 1,500 fathoms of Atlantic pressing lightly about me; and I would splay brightness, running through the visible spectrum and past, bounce sounds, receive echoes.

Momentarily, I lost my footing. I adjusted and recovered it. Then something struggled within me, and for the thinnest slice of an instant I seemed to split, to be of two minds. I reached out with sensory powers I had never before exercisedЧa matter of reflex rather than intentЧand simultaneous with the arrival of its effects, I pinpointed the disturbance.

As I was swept from the canyonТs bed and slammed against the wall of stone that had towered to my left, was shaken and tossed end over end, was carried down and along by the irresistible pressure of muddy water, I located the epicenter of the earthquake as fifty-three miles to the south-southeast. Addenda to the impression of a submarine canyon: one heavy dust storm; extinguish the lantern.

I could scarcely believe my good fortune. It was fascinating. I was being swept along at well over fifty miles an hour, buried in mud, uncovered, bounced, tossed, spun, reburied, pressed, turned, torn free and borne along once again, on down into the abyssal depths. I recorded everything.

For a long time, submarine canyons were believed to represent the remains of dry-land canyons, formed back in the ice ages, covered over when the seas rose again. But they simply cut too far. Impossible quantities of water would have to have been bound as ice to account for the depths to which they extend. It was Heezen and Ewing of Lament who really made the first strong case for turbidity currents as the causative agent, though others such as Daly had suggested it before them; and I believe it was Heezen who once said that no one would ever see a turbidity current and survive. Of course, he had had in mind the state of the art at that time, several decades back. Still, I felt extremely fortunate that I had been in a position to take full advantage of the shock in this fashion, to register the forces with which the canyon walls were being hammered and abraded, the density and the velocity of the particles, the temperature shiftsЕ I clucked with excitement.

Then, somewhere, plunging, that split again, a troubled dual consciousness, as though everything were slightly out of focus, to each thought itself and a running shadow. This slippage increased, the off thoughts merged into something entire, something which moved apart from me, dimmed, was gone. With its passing, I too felt somehow more entire, a sufficiency within an aloneness which granted me a measure of control I had never realized I possessed. I extended my awareness along wavelengths I had not essayed before, exploring far, farther yetЕ

Carefully, I strove for stability, realizing that even I could be destroyed if I did not achieve it. How clumsy I had been! It should not be that difficult to ride the current all the way down to the abyssal plains. I continued to test my awareness as I went, clucking over each new discovery.

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УEase up, Dan! ItТs running the show now. Let it!Ф

УI guess youТre right, Tom.Ф

He leaned back, removing the stereovisual helmet, detaching himself from the telefactor harness. Out of the gauntlets, where microminiaturized air-jet transducers had conveyed the tactile information; strap after sensitive strap undone, force and motion feedback disconnected. Tom moved to assist him. When they had finished, the teleoperator exoskel hung like a gutted crustacean within the U-shaped recess of the console. Dan dragged the back of his hand over his forehead, ran his fingers through his hair. Tom steered him across the cabin toward a chair facing the view-screen.

УYouТre sweating like a pig. Sit down. Can I get you something?Ф

УAny coffee left?Ф

УYeah. Just a minute.Ф

Tom filled a mug and passed it to him. He seated himself in a nearby chair. Both men regarded the screen. It showed the same turbulence, the mud and rock passage Dan had regarded through the helmetТs eyepiece. But now these things were only objects. Away from the remote manipulator system, he was no longer a part of them. He sipped his coffee and studied the flow.

УЕ Really lucky,Ф he said, Уto run into something like this first time out.Ф

Tom nodded. The boat rocked gently. The console hummed.