[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
The car stopped, hard by the road edge. Iason gathered his thews, opened the
door, and sprang.
Perhaps the radio behind him uttered a curse. The jet slewed around and
swooped like a hawk.
Bullets sleeted at his heels.
Then he was in among the trees. They roofed him with sun-speckled shadow.
Their trunks stood in massive masculine strength, their branches breathed
fragrance a woman might envy. Fallen needles softened his foot-thud, a thrush
warbled, a light wind cooled his cheeks. He threw himself beneath the shelter
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
of one bole and lay in it gasping with a heartbeat which all but drowned the
sinister whistle above.
Presently it went away. Runolf must have called back to his lord. Ottar would
fly horses and hounds to this place, the only way of pursuit. But Iason had a
few hours grace.
After that He rallied his training, sat up and thought. If Socrates, feeling
the hemlock s chill, could speak wisdom to the young men of Athens, Iason
Philippou could assess his own chances.
For he wasn t dead yet.
He numbered his assets. A pistol of the local slug-throwing type; a compass; a
pocketful of gold and silver coins; a cloak that might double as a blanket,
above the tunic-trousers-boots costume of central Westfall. And himself, the
ultimate instrument. His body was tall and broad together with fair hair and
short nose, an inheritance from Gallic ancestors and had been trained by men
who won wreaths at the Olym-peion. His mind, his entire nervous system,
counted for still more. The pedagogues of Eutopia had made logic, semantic
consciousness, perspective as natural to him as breathing; his memory was
under such control that he had no need of a map; despite one calamitous
mistake, he knew he was trained to deal with the most outlandish
manifestations of the human spirit.
And, yes, before all else, he had reason to live. It went beyond any blind
wish to continue an identity; that was only something the DNA molecule had
elaborated in order to make more DNA
molecules. He had his beloved to return to. He had his country: Eutopia, the
Good Land, which his people had founded two thousand years ago on a new
continent, leaving behind the hatreds and horrors of Europe, taking along the
work of Aristotle, and writing at last in their Syntagma, The national
purpose is the attainment of universal sanity.
Iason Philippou was bound home.
He rose and started walking south.
THAT WAS ONTETRADE,which his hunters called Onsdag. Some thirty-six hours
later, he knew he was not in Pentade but near sunset of Thors-dag. For he
lurched through the wood, mouth filled with mummy dust, belly a cavern of
emptiness, knees shaking beneath him, flies a thundercloud about the sweat
dried on his skin, and heard the distant belling of hounds.
A horn responded, long brazen snarl through the leaf arches. They had gotten
his scent, he could not outrun horsemen and he would not see stars again.
One hand dropped to his gun.
I ll take a couple of them with me. . . . No.
He was still a Hellene, who did not kill uselessly, not even barbarians who
meant to slay him because he had broken a taboo of theirs.
I will stand under an open sky, take their bullets, and go down into darkness
remembering
Eutopia and all my friends and Niki whom I love.
Realization came, dimly, that he had left the pine forest and was in a second
growth of beeches.
Light gilded their leaves and caressed the slim white trunks. And what was
that growl up ahead?
He stopped. A portal might remain. He had driven himself near collapse; but
the organism has a reserve which the fully integrated man may call upon. From
consciousness he abolished the sound of dogs, every ache and exhaustion. He
drew breath after breath of air, noting its calm and purity, visualizing the
oxygen atoms that poured through his starved tissues. He made the heartbeat
quit racketing, go over to a deep slow pulse; he tensed and relaxed muscles
until each functioned smoothly again; pain ceased to feed on itself and died
away; despair gave place to calm and calculation. He trod forth.
Page 168
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Plowlands rolled southward before him, their young grain vivid in the light
that slanted gold from the west. Not far off stood a cluster of farm
buildings, long, low, and peak-roofed. Chimney smoke stained heaven. But his
eyes went first to the man closer by. The fellow was cultivating with a
tractor. Though the dielectric motor had been invented in this world, its use
had not yet spread this far north, and gasoline fumes caught at Iason s [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl rafalstec.xlx.pl
The car stopped, hard by the road edge. Iason gathered his thews, opened the
door, and sprang.
Perhaps the radio behind him uttered a curse. The jet slewed around and
swooped like a hawk.
Bullets sleeted at his heels.
Then he was in among the trees. They roofed him with sun-speckled shadow.
Their trunks stood in massive masculine strength, their branches breathed
fragrance a woman might envy. Fallen needles softened his foot-thud, a thrush
warbled, a light wind cooled his cheeks. He threw himself beneath the shelter
Page 167
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
of one bole and lay in it gasping with a heartbeat which all but drowned the
sinister whistle above.
Presently it went away. Runolf must have called back to his lord. Ottar would
fly horses and hounds to this place, the only way of pursuit. But Iason had a
few hours grace.
After that He rallied his training, sat up and thought. If Socrates, feeling
the hemlock s chill, could speak wisdom to the young men of Athens, Iason
Philippou could assess his own chances.
For he wasn t dead yet.
He numbered his assets. A pistol of the local slug-throwing type; a compass; a
pocketful of gold and silver coins; a cloak that might double as a blanket,
above the tunic-trousers-boots costume of central Westfall. And himself, the
ultimate instrument. His body was tall and broad together with fair hair and
short nose, an inheritance from Gallic ancestors and had been trained by men
who won wreaths at the Olym-peion. His mind, his entire nervous system,
counted for still more. The pedagogues of Eutopia had made logic, semantic
consciousness, perspective as natural to him as breathing; his memory was
under such control that he had no need of a map; despite one calamitous
mistake, he knew he was trained to deal with the most outlandish
manifestations of the human spirit.
And, yes, before all else, he had reason to live. It went beyond any blind
wish to continue an identity; that was only something the DNA molecule had
elaborated in order to make more DNA
molecules. He had his beloved to return to. He had his country: Eutopia, the
Good Land, which his people had founded two thousand years ago on a new
continent, leaving behind the hatreds and horrors of Europe, taking along the
work of Aristotle, and writing at last in their Syntagma, The national
purpose is the attainment of universal sanity.
Iason Philippou was bound home.
He rose and started walking south.
THAT WAS ONTETRADE,which his hunters called Onsdag. Some thirty-six hours
later, he knew he was not in Pentade but near sunset of Thors-dag. For he
lurched through the wood, mouth filled with mummy dust, belly a cavern of
emptiness, knees shaking beneath him, flies a thundercloud about the sweat
dried on his skin, and heard the distant belling of hounds.
A horn responded, long brazen snarl through the leaf arches. They had gotten
his scent, he could not outrun horsemen and he would not see stars again.
One hand dropped to his gun.
I ll take a couple of them with me. . . . No.
He was still a Hellene, who did not kill uselessly, not even barbarians who
meant to slay him because he had broken a taboo of theirs.
I will stand under an open sky, take their bullets, and go down into darkness
remembering
Eutopia and all my friends and Niki whom I love.
Realization came, dimly, that he had left the pine forest and was in a second
growth of beeches.
Light gilded their leaves and caressed the slim white trunks. And what was
that growl up ahead?
He stopped. A portal might remain. He had driven himself near collapse; but
the organism has a reserve which the fully integrated man may call upon. From
consciousness he abolished the sound of dogs, every ache and exhaustion. He
drew breath after breath of air, noting its calm and purity, visualizing the
oxygen atoms that poured through his starved tissues. He made the heartbeat
quit racketing, go over to a deep slow pulse; he tensed and relaxed muscles
until each functioned smoothly again; pain ceased to feed on itself and died
away; despair gave place to calm and calculation. He trod forth.
Page 168
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Plowlands rolled southward before him, their young grain vivid in the light
that slanted gold from the west. Not far off stood a cluster of farm
buildings, long, low, and peak-roofed. Chimney smoke stained heaven. But his
eyes went first to the man closer by. The fellow was cultivating with a
tractor. Though the dielectric motor had been invented in this world, its use
had not yet spread this far north, and gasoline fumes caught at Iason s [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]