Читаем Stranger in a Strange Land полностью

The lives of the adults were not entirely free of work in the human sense; they had still a planet to take care of and supervise, plants must be told when and where to grow, nymphs who had passed their ’prenticeships by surviving must be gathered in, cherished, fertilized, the resultant eggs must be cherished and contemplated to encourage them to ripen properly, the fulfilled nymphs must be persuaded to give up childish things and then metamorphosed into adults. All these things must be done—but they were no more the “life” of Mars than is walking the dog twice a day the “life” of a man who controls a planet-wide corporation in the hours between those pleasant walks… even though to a being from Arcturus III those daily walks might seem to be the tycoon’s most significant activity—no doubt as a slave to the dog.

Martians and humans were both self-aware life forms but they had gone in vastly different directions. All human behavior, all human motivations, all man’s hopes and fears, were heavily colored and largely controlled by mankind’s tragic and oddly beautiful pattern of reproduction. The same was true of Mars, but in mirror corollary. Mars had the efficient bipolar pattern so common in that galaxy, but the Martians had it in a form so different from the Terran form that it would have been termed “sex” only by a biologist, and it emphatically would not have been “sex” to a human psychiatrist. Martian nymphs were female, all the adults were male.

But in each case in function only, not in psychology. The man-woman polarity which controlled all human lives could not exist on Mars. There was no possibility of “marriage.” The adults were huge, reminding the first humans to see them of ice boats under sail; they were physically passive, mentally active. The nymphs were fat, furry spheres, full of bounce and mindless energy. There was no possible parallel between human and Martian psychological foundations. Human bipolarity was both the binding force and the driving energy for all human behavior, from sonnets to nuclear equations. If any being thinks that human psychologists exaggerate on this point, let it search Terran patent offices, libraries, and art galleries for creations of eunuchs.

Mars, being geared unlike Earth, paid little attention to the Envoy and the Champion. The two events had happened too recently to be of significance—if Martians had used newspapers, one edition a Terran century would have been ample. Contact with other races was nothing new to Martians; it had happened before, would happen again. When the new other race had been thoroughly grokked, then (in a Terran millennium or so) would be time for action, if needed.

On Mars the currently important event was of a different sort. The discorporate Old Ones had decided almost absent-mindedly to send the nestling human to grok what he could of the third planet, then turned attention back to serious matters. Shortly before, around the time of the Terran Caesar Augustus, a Martian artist had been engaged in composing a work of art. It could have been called with equal truth a poem, a musical opus, or a philosophical treatise; it was a series of emotions arranged in tragic, logical necessity. Since it could have been experienced by a human only in the sense in which a man blind from birth could have a sunset explained to him, it does not matter much to which category of human creativity it might be assigned. The important point was that the artist had accidentally discorporated before he finished his masterpiece.

Unexpected discorporation was always rare on Mars; Martian taste in such matters called for life to be a rounded whole, with physical death taking place at the appropriate and selected instant. This artist, however, had become so preoccupied with his work that he had forgotten to come in out of the cold; by the time his absence was noticed his body was hardly fit to eat. He himself had not noticed his own discorporation and had gone right on composing his sequence.

Martian art was divided sharply into two categories, that sort created by living adults, which was vigorous, often quite radical, and primitive, and that of the Old Ones, which was usually conservative, extremely complex, and was expected to show much higher standards of technique; the two sorts were judged separately.

By what standards should this opus be judged? It bridged from the corporate to the discorporate; its final form had been set throughout by an Old One—yet on the other hand the artist, with the detachment of all artists everywhere, had not even noticed the change in his status and had continued to work as if he were corporate. Was it possibly a new sort of art? Could more such pieces be produced by surprise discorporation of artists while they were working? The Old Ones had been discussing the exciting possibilities in ruminative rapport for centuries and all corporate Martians were eagerly awaiting their verdict.

Перейти на страницу:

Похожие книги

Аччелерандо
Аччелерандо

Сингулярность. Эпоха постгуманизма. Искусственный интеллект превысил возможности человеческого разума. Люди фактически обрели бессмертие, но одновременно биотехнологический прогресс поставил их на грань вымирания. Наноботы копируют себя и развиваются по собственной воле, а контакт с внеземной жизнью неизбежен. Само понятие личности теперь получает совершенно новое значение. В таком мире пытаются выжить разные поколения одного семейного клана. Его основатель когда-то натолкнулся на странный сигнал из далекого космоса и тем самым перевернул всю историю Земли. Его потомки пытаются остановить уничтожение человеческой цивилизации. Ведь что-то разрушает планеты Солнечной системы. Сущность, которая находится за пределами нашего разума и не видит смысла в существовании биологической жизни, какую бы форму та ни приняла.

Чарлз Стросс

Научная Фантастика
Дневники Киллербота
Дневники Киллербота

Три премии HugoЧетыре премии LocusДве премии NebulaПремия AlexПремия BooktubeSSFПремия StabbyПремия Hugo за лучшую сериюВ далёком корпоративном будущем каждая космическая экспедиция обязана получить от Компании снаряжение и специальных охранных мыслящих андроидов.После того, как один из них «хакнул» свой модуль управления, он получил свободу и стал называть себя «Киллерботом». Люди его не интересуют и все, что он действительно хочет – это смотреть в одиночестве скачанную медиатеку с 35 000 часов кинофильмов и сериалов.Однако, разные форс-мажорные ситуации, связанные с глупостью людей, коварством корпоратов и хитрыми планами искусственных интеллектов заставляют Киллербота выяснять, что происходит и решать эти опасные проблемы. И еще – Киллербот как-то со всем связан, а память об этом у него стерта. Но истина где-то рядом. Полное издание «Дневников Киллербота» – весь сериал в одном томе!Поздравляем! Вы – Киллербот!Весь цикл «Дневники Киллербота», все шесть романов и повестей, которые сделали Марту Уэллс звездой современной научной фантастики!Неосвоенные колонии на дальних планетах, космические орбитальные станции, власть всемогущих корпораций, происки полицейских, искусственные интеллекты в компьютерных сетях, функциональные андроиды и в центре – простые люди, которым всегда нужна помощь Киллербота.«Я теперь все ее остальные книги буду искать. Прекрасный автор, высшая лига… Рекомендую». – Сергей Лукьяненко«Ироничные наблюдения Киллербота за человеческим поведением столь же забавны, как и всегда. Еще один выигрышный выпуск сериала». – Publishers Weekly«Категорически оправдывает все ожидания. Остроумная, интеллектуальная, очень приятная космоопера». – Aurealis«Милая, веселая, остросюжетная и просто убийственная книга». – Кэмерон Херли«Умная, изобретательная, брутальная при необходимости и никогда не сентиментальная». – Кейт Эллиот

Марта Уэллс , Наталия В. Рокачевская

Фантастика / Космическая фантастика / Научная Фантастика