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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] attack, but I never saw them here before, and they didn't teach me anything about those in pilot's training." Krisha, who'd seen them once, stared at the screens and was appalled. "Don't you see? That's how it's done!" she exclaimed. "Subspace parallel universe, other-dimensional plane, whatever you call it. It's the someplace!. They move, they float within, they attach to a wall and somehow ooze their slime into our universe!" The captain frowned. "What? How?" "I don't know. Through idols, perhaps, and other icons of evil. By being called by those who worship them. Hundreds of ways, I suspect. It's the physical realization of pure, unadorned evil!" Jimmy stared at the slowly pulsing, plastic shapes. "He said they did experiments. That's the mechanism, I'd wager. Program one of those things the way we program computers and send it to a specific point on the grid, small enough for a local area or huge enough to envelop whole worlds. Responsive now only to the Engineer. They said that he alone refused to give up playing with us like toys. Now he's moving them, concentrating them, perhaps making and programming more. My God! He could cover the Three Empires! And with the Quintara active and free, and all those who've always followed evil and the ancient evil ways on world after world, race after race. . . . It's monstrous! It's the ancient Enemy setting up his pieces to strike at will and without warning! And with ninety trillion Fausts out there being propped for seduction and damnation." "Jeez," Grysta said under her breath, listening to the conversation, sounding more amazed than contrite. "/ helped do all that ?" Gun Rob Chin stared at Jimmy. "Who's this 'Faust'?" "An ancient tale of a scholar who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20...%20Marathon%203%20-%20Ninety% 20Trillion%20.txt (109 of 217) [1/19/03 4:43:36 PM] file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20The%20Quintara%20 Marathon%203%20-%20Ninety%20Trillion%20.txt twenty years of anything he wanted," Jimmy told him. "It was fun until the end of the twentieth year. The message is that everybody has a price, but selling out has its own price as well. This Engineer, he's a god for all intents and purposes, just as the others are as well. But, unlike them, he lacks compassion, or any sense of ethics over lower races. Any at all. He probably ran their experiments in the early days. Perhaps there were even bets." He thought of Job but decided not to have to explain the Bible to the Mizlaplanians in one easy lesson. "Then something happened. Either they went too far, and everyone but the Engineer was appalled, or they were caught playing by the Captain, who ordered a stop to it. The rest did, but not the Engineer. He was having too much fun. It was probably like a drug to him. He couldn't give it up, couldn't halt playing God. In a sense, he was the first Faustus, the model. He traded being a god as Page 104 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html long as it lasted to thinking about the consequences of mutiny in some far-off time." "He'll fight if he has to, or when it amuses him to do so," Krisha agreed, "but he'd much prefer to corrupt and have us march willingly into his horrible slavery. That is consistent with our Scripture." "But we all three empires are but a slice, and not even a third of a slice, of a single galaxy!" the captain noted. "Why us? We still can't even count the galaxies out there!" "Oh, it's probably nor just us," Jimmy answered. "We saw the countless galaxies like grains of sand from within that plane. But we're special. It was while they were playing with us, in our little corner of the universe, that they got caught. Trapped. The demons sealed up, the Engineer forced to work remotely through the other plane, the ship's corridor or whatever it is, with more limited resources. God knows he was bad enough even under that sort of handicap considering the evil, misery, and destruction of all the histories we know! Krisha said it when she talked about the demon princes, who are, after all, in many ways reflections of their master. Here, in our little corner of the universe, is where they nipped him, hurt him, pushed him back, gave him a bloody nose and a black eye. All his thoughts for these thousands of years have been directed at us, at getting even, at becoming the supreme power and punishing those who bloodied him. It's a point of honor with him. He might even show kindness or mercy to others far off, for gods are always capricious, but here here, he wants to drop into a Hell of his worst imaginings." Gun Roh Chin nodded. "It all makes a horrible, twisted sense. Worse, it's consistent with the ancient legends of countless races and the varied ones of our own common mother world. The Hindus perhaps had the best appreciation of the grandiose cosmology, the Jews and their siblings the Christians and Moslems the best appreciation of the local situation. Right now, however, I see more immediate problems." "Indeed? What?" Jimmy asked. The captain pointed to the screens. "This is the only way from world to world without spending several lifetimes in space. What's the energy blister that maintains our own dimensional environment here to such as that! If that many can be mustered over so vast an area in this short a time, think what a few more weeks, or months, might bring. If he's a good strategist, as his reputation indicates he is, the worlds will be the last to be fully attacked, save some priming. Think of it! No one will be able to move through subspace without encountering one of those things. They will control travel, commerce, even communication between the worlds. All worlds. They will be cut off, surrounded like white stones on a Go board. All three empires are organized similarly; the glue that holds them together is a level of interdependence. Cut off that trade and you have whole worlds who must submit or die." file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20...%20Marathon%203%20-%20Ninety% 20Trillion%20.txt (110 of 217) [1/19/03 4:43:36 PM] file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20The%20Quintara%20 Marathon%203%20-%20Ninety%20Trillion%20.txt "It is diabolical," Krisha said, horrified at the picture. "Indeed. And, in a way, reassuring." They all looked at the captain quizzically. "Reassuring?" Jimmy prompted. He nodded. "He's living up to his reputation. By doing so, however, he is also approachable. We understand him precisely. What he is doing and why. He has become so corrupted that he is at our level, in a sense. It is a game we can play." Jimmy snorted. "I'd rather have his pieces than ours at this point." "Perhaps. Have you ever played Go?" "Don't know it. Chess was my game, along with cards." "Each player places a stone, one at a time, on a very large grid. When an area Page 105 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |