He had accomplished the neat feat of dividing the universe into three parts: himself, the rest of the cosmos, and his fellow crewmembers. No doubt one day Doolittle might insist it had been too many centuries. It had been only a few days, a few months, a few years. Of them all, Doolittle came the closest to understanding, and even he insisted that the astronomer spent too much time up here in the dome, too much time alone, too much time staring into naked, empty space.Įmpty space-poor, sad Lieutenant Doolittle! It was only empty inside the ship. Poor middling souls-his greatest regret was that he couldn't share his pleasure with them. The others looked on his special relationship rather differently, of course. At least one man had succeeded in blending with the universe without inflicting himself on it. They never listened.īetter to do it this way. Talby shook his head, though there were none but the stars to see it. It was sad.Īnd it was so easy not to make the same old mistakes over again! If only they would try it his way, if only he could make them see. Never a moment to listen, to look, to try to see and understand. He'd gone at it as he had gone at everything else throughout his history-hacking and clubbing and chopping, an ax in one hand and a scythe in the other. That was the trouble with man's first extended explorations of deep space. They told you and were happy to, confessed all their secrets without prodding, without coercion, without being violated by clumsy, poking, grabby machines. Of course, when the stars were your best friends, you didn't have to work very hard to find out about them. Talby could distinguish almost every order of magnitude now. The chair would, swivel 90, 180, 270 degrees, and another section of the cosmos would come under Talby-scrutiny. Now and then the soft touch of a finger initiated a muted hum of precision machinery. Only Talby and his seat, floating in a hole on the top of the ship. Every imperfection had been scrubbed out of it, till now there seemed to be no dome. He'd buffed down the inside and outside so many times that the dome was almost impossible to see. He leaned back in the pneumatic astronomer's lounge, a pale bean in a pod of smooth maroon, and stared up through the dome. Ho could a man take the measure of a sun if he had to stop and think about it? Talby smiled. To get really good at it, you had to spend long stretches in practice, sharpening your perception and senses until eyes and mind operated instinctively. With only the naked eye, most navigators could distinguish only a few degrees, magnitude, but Talby had had more practice than most navigators. It made a man free-one star, two stars, and baby makes three. Talby didn't see how anyone could appreciate a star by using mere mathematical charts.īut he kept counting. There seemed to be something about uncoupling all the scientific instruments a while back, uncoupling them because it seemed blasphemous for such splendor to be reduced to a mere listing in a book.Īnyhow, the number didn't matter, did it? There were plenty of stars to go around, and if the muddlers back on Earth wanted records of them, let them come out here for themselves and do their own tracking. Probably they were all noted down somewhere neat and official in the astronomer's records-or had he disconnected the tracker? It was hard to recall. He didn't remember exactly when he'd lost count. Harris Enterprises, Inc.Īll rights reserved under International andĢ01 East 50th Street, New York, N.Y. ALAN DEAN FOSTER BOOKS ONLINE FREE TVSure to be a hit with teens watching the TV show. A charming bit of Dinotopian lore: I would wish for more than the one pencil sketch. After seeing bas-relief depiction of the horrific war that resulted from the passage's use years before, they decide that their discovery is best reported to and handled by the proper Dinotopian authorities. They find Sylvia, trek across the desert, are kidnapped by nomads, chased by raptors, and teach a rogue band of Deinonychus to fish, and they do indeed discover the Hand. Of course, Will's translator and reluctant companion, Protoceratops Chaz, is ordered to accompany him. She is on a quest to find the legendary Hand of Dinotopia, said to point the way to safe sea passage to and from the island. Will Denison is searching for his fiancee, Sylvia, who has taken off for the desert. ALAN DEAN FOSTER BOOKS ONLINE FREE FREEThe hand of Dinotopia." The Free Library.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |