"The Time Ships" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baxter Stephen)[9] Revelations and RemonstrancesI came to, spread-eagled on the Floor once more, and staring up into that confounded light. I hoisted myself up onto my elbows, and rubbed my dazzled eyes. My Morlock friend was still there, standing just outside the circle of light. I got to my feet, rueful. These New Morlocks were going to be a handful for me, I realized. The Morlock stepped into the light, its blue goggles glinting. As if nothing had interrupted our dialogue, he said, “My name is” — his pronunciation reverted to the usual shapeless Morlock pattern — “Nebogipfel.” This, I realized, was the first Morlock whose name I had learned — the first who stood out from the masses of them I had encountered, and fought; the first to have the attributes of a distinguishable person. “So, Nebogipfel,” I said. I sat cross-legged beside my trays, and rubbed at the rash of bruises my latest fall had inflicted on my upper arm. “You have been assigned as my keeper, here in this zoo.” “Work with me?” “I — we — want to understand how you came to be here.” “Do you, by Jove?” I got to my feet and paced around my Cage of Light. “What if I told you that I came here in a machine that can carry a man through time?” I held up my hands. “That I built such a machine, with these brutish hands? What then, eh?” He seemed to think that over. “Your era, as dated from your speech and physique, is very remote from ours. You are capable of achievements of high technology — witness your machine, whether or not it carries you through time as you claim. And the clothes you wear, the state of your hands, and the wear patterns of your teeth — all of these are indicative of a high state of civilization.” “I’m flattered,” I said with some heat, “but if you believe I’m capable of such things — that I am a man, not an ape — why am I caged up in this way?” “Because,” he said evenly, “you have already tried to attack me, with every intent of doing me harm. And on the earth, you did great damage to—” I felt fury burning anew. I stepped towards him. “Your monkeys were pawing at my machine,” I shouted. “What did you expect? I was defending myself. I—” He said: “ His words pierced my rage. I tried to cling to the remnants of my self-justifying anger, but they were already receding from me. “What did you say?” I stepped back from him. I remembered now I let myself think about it — that the Morlocks capering ineffectually around my machine had struck me as smaller than those I’d encountered before. And they had made no attempt to hurt me… save only the poor creature I had captured, and who had then nipped my hand — before I clubbed its face! “The one I struck. Did he — it — survive?” “The physical injuries were reparable. But—” “Yes?” “The inner scars, the scars of the mind — these may never heal.” I dropped my head. “You are expressing shame,” Nebogipfel said. He said nothing. Even while I was confronting this personal horror, some calculating part of my mind was running over something Nebogipfel had said. “What “You have much to learn of us.” “Tell me about the Sphere!” “It is a Sphere around the sun.” Those seven simple words — startling! — and yet… Of course! The solar evolution I had watched in the time-accelerated sky, the exclusion of the sunlight from the earth — “I understand,” I said to Nebogipfel. “I watched the Sphere’s construction.” The Morlock’s eyes seemed to widen, in a very human mannerism, as he considered this unexpected news. And now, for me, other aspects of my situation were becoming clear. “You said,” I essayed to Nebogipfel, “ ’On the earth, you did great damage — ’ Something on those lines.” It was an odd thing to say, I thought now — “Stars.” “Not representations, not some kind of planetarium—” “Stars.” I nodded. “And this light from above—” “It is sunlight.” Somehow, I think I had known it. I stood in the light of a sun, which was overhead for twenty-four hours of every day; I stood on a Floor above the stars… I felt as if the world were shifting about me; I felt light headed, and there was a remote ringing in my ears. My adventures had already taken me across the deserts of time, but now — thanks to my capture by these astonishing Morlocks — |
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