Songs Of Distant Earth by Arthur C Clarke

Author:Arthur C Clarke [Clarke, Arthur C]
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783464127728
Publisher: Cornelsen & Oxford University Press
Published: 2010-06-04T18:30:00+00:00

30 Child of Krakan There was little conversation aboard as Calypso headed back towards Tarna at a modest twenty klicks; her passengers were lost in their thoughts, brooding over the implications of those images from the seabed. And Loren was still cut off from the outside world; he had kept on the full-view goggles and was playing back yet again the underwater sledge's exploration of the submarine forest. Spinning out its cable like a mechanical spider, the robot had moved slowly through the great trunks, which looked slender because of their enormous length but were actually thicker than a man's body. It was now obvious that they were ranged in regular columns and rows, so no one was really surprised when they came to a clearly defined end. And there, going about their business in their jungle encampment, were the scorps. It had been wise not to switch on the floodlights; the creatures were completely unaware of the silent observer floating in the near-darkness only metres overhead. Loren had seen videos of ants, bees, and termites, and the way in which the scorps were functioning reminded him of these. At first sight, it was impossible to believe that such intricate organization could exist without a controlling intelligence - yet their behaviour might be entirely automatic, as in the case of Earth's social insects. Some scorps were tending the great trunks that soared up towards the surface to harvest the rays of the invisible sun; others were scuttling along the seabed carrying rocks, leaves - and yes, crude but unmistakable nets and baskets. So the scorps were tool-makers; but even that did not prove intelligence. Some bird's nests were much more carefully fashioned than these rather clumsy artifacts, apparently constructed from stems and fronds of the omnipresent kelp. I felt like a visitor from space, Loren thought, poised above a Stone Age village on Earth, just when Man was discovering agriculture. Could he - or it - have correctly assessed human intelligence from such a survey? Or would the verdict have been: pure instinctive behaviour? The probe had now gone so far into the clearing that the surrounding forest was no longer visible, though the nearest trunks could not have been more than fifty metres away. It was then that some wit among the Northers uttered the name that was thereafter unavoidable, even in the scientific reports: 'Downtown Scorpville". It seemed to be, for want of better terms, both a residential and a business area. An outcropping of rock, about five metres high, meandered across the opening, and its face was pierced by numerous dark holes just wide enough to admit a scorp. Although these little caves were irregularly spaced, they were of such uniform size that they could hardly be natural, and the whole effect was that of an apartment building designed by an eccentric architect. Scorps were coming and going through the entrances - like office workers in one of the old cities before the age of telecommunications, Loren thought.

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.