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regime. He hadn't my rigidity, and he hadn't the solid, bodily base and total
integration with that base that I had. The difference between us now left him
more exposed than me.
-We have to avoid the patterns, he said.
Patterns?
-That's what thought is, he amplified. That's what life is. Patterns of
molecules, patterns of cells. Order, in an entropic environment. A
countercurrent to the flow of randomness. Every thought that passes through
your brain-mine as well as yours-is simply an electrical pattern set up in the
cytoarchitecture of the grey matter. The coding capacity of that cellular
network is vast-well-nigh infinite. There's an incalculable number of thoughts
which you might think but never will. But the potential of the network is by
no means all-conclusive. There are thoughts which cannot be coded into your
brain. There are concepts you can't reach. No matter, in most situations... a
purely hypothetical case. But not here. Here, the patterns which exist in
nature-all of them-are alien to the very structure of your being. If your mind
tries to adapt itself to them it will be destroyed. The whole integration of
your thought-processes will be broken down. You need some confirmation, you
see, in your environment, to keep the structure of your mind whole and sane.
Even in the real world-our world-people lose control... their
pattern-structure breaks down or is injured. Insanity is never far away even
in the world which made us. Here... it's going to take every last vestige of
faith and strength and luck to hold us together. Physically, as well as
mentally. This assault is mounted on all fronts. The only help we have is the
ship -maybe both ships. They're our sort of existence, our sort of pattern.
They confirm our existence... just so long as they maintain their own. But out
there, trying to cross from one ship to the other... I don't know.
You said something about a mind, I reminded him. You said that this place is
a mind.
-I think so. I may be wrong, but I think I'm right. It's trying to assimilate
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us. Consciously trying. Physically, I don't suppose that matters much-it will
be as much at the mercy of its own subconscious processes as you are... or
were, before I joined you. But mentally, it puts us in worse trouble. It means
that we're not just exercising our strength against inert force. We're going
to be invaded... we're going to be mindpicked.
He already knew what I thought about mindpicking- he knew that the use of the
word would frighten me more than his cold logic and his wordy theory. He was
trying to make me see just how badly off we were... or might be.
You don't want to try, do you? I said.
-I'm only...
Only nothing. You want to turn back now. You don't want to try to reach the
Sister Swan. You want to run.
-It might be an idea, he said.
You're supposed to be the hero, I reminded him. I'm the guy you're always
kicking for lack of violent enterprise and reckless courage, remember.
-I remember, he said.
This is different, I added for him. This time your neck's out with mine.
Maybe farther than mine. How does it feel to be in my shoes? How do you feel,
hero?
-If the positions are reversed, said the wind, then we should both be in a
position to understand. How do you feel?
Not so heroic.
-But you're going to make the attempt.
That's right.
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-So OK. But you aren't going to say I didn't warn you. You're going to
remember-if you get the chance to remember-that the time I acted your part,
you acted mine. I want you to remember that. Just so you'll know. We really
are in this together. Not just this, but all of it. Life, existence. You and
I, brother. We're no different, under the skin.
I'll remember what there is to remember, I told him.
-Remember this, he said. There's something out there. Maybe alive, maybe
dead. Maybe thinking, perhaps not. But there's something which reached into
your brain and tried to communicate, when you let it. If you let it do it [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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