Gregory Benford by Beyond the Fall of Night

Author:Beyond the Fall of Night
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

4 A LARGER TOPOLOGY

She worked for long days in the shattered ruins. The robots cleared the heavy wreckage, but there were innumerable places where human care and common sense could rescue a fragment of the shattered past and she was glad to help. The severed finger on her left hand had regrown but was still stiff and weak so she wanted to exercise it. And she needed time to clear her head, to climb out of an abyss of grief.

The attack had been thorough. Livid bolts had assaulted one wing of the Library with particular attention, she learned. Shafts had descended again and again in brilliant skeins of color, hanging for long moments like a malevolent rainbow whose feet shot electrical arrows into the soil.

That wing had housed the Library of Humanity. The Urhumans had been the oldest form lodged there, and now they and all the many varieties of humanity that had immediately followed them were lost - except for Cley.

The impact of this was difficult for her to comprehend. The robots gave her awkward, excessive deference. The Supras all paid her polite respect, and she felt their careful protection as she worked. In turn, without obvious, she watched the Supras commanding robot legions, but did not know how to read their mood.

Then one day a Supra woman suddenly broke off her task and began to dance. She moved with effortless energy, whirling and tumbling, her feet flashing across the debris of the Library, hands held up as if to clasp the sky. Other Supras took up the dance behind her and in moments they were all moving with stunning speed that did not have any note of rush or frenzy.

Cley knew then that she was watching a refinement of Urhuman rituals that went far beyond anything her tribe had used to defuse inner torments. She could glimpse no pattern to their arabesques, but sensed subtle elements slipping by in each movement. It was eerie to watch several hundred bodies revolve and spring and bounce and glide, all without the merest glance at one another, without song or even faint music. In the total silence she could pick up no signals from the talent: they were utterly quiet, each orbiting in a dosed curve. The Supras danced without pause or sign of tiring for the rest of the day and through the night and on well into the next morning.

Cley watched their relentless, driving dances without hope of comprehending. Without meaning to, the Supras told her that she was utterly alone. Seeker was no company, either; it gave the Supras only an occasional glance and soon fell asleep. She longed for her own people and tried to leave the Supra compound, but as she approached the perimeter her skin began to burn ;and itch intolerably.

While the tall, perfect figures whified through the night she remembered loves and lives now lost down death’s funnel, tried to sleep and not.

gnd then without a sign or gesture they abruptly

… looked around at each other … and wordreturned to work.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.