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plop of something falling from a
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0Other%20End%20Of%20Time.txt tree, a nearby growl (which turned out only to be
Martin snoring)-every sound was an alarm. Almost anything, Patsy thought,
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could leap raging at her out of the trees; but then time passed and nothing
did, and the fears, while not going away, changed character. Were they really
going to try to take on the might of the Horch killing machines with a handful
of popguns? Should they be doing that, anyhow? (Or was Dannerman right about
the dangers of taking sides?) And, that biggest question of all, how much
truth was there in the promise of eternal bliss (or otherwise) in this
improbable eschaton? The questions revolved themselves through her tired
brain-with, of course, no answers. She was fed up with the endless supply of
unanswerable questions.
But then she had only to lift her eyes to the sky to see the kind of marvel
she had never expected to behold. It was-there was only one word for
it-magnificent. She noticed, as time went on, that the stars were
appropriately wheeling across the heaven, just as they should do; that pair of
blue-
white beacons that had been low on the horizon when they arrived was now gone
from view, and on the other side of the sky-she supposed she should call it
the "east"-there was a whole new puzzle to gape at. Streamers of pale light
stretched among the newly risen stars, some of them almost as bright as the
stars themselves, almost enough to make her squint. She realized with a sudden
shiver- part excitement, part wonder at being privileged to see such a thing
with her own unaided eyes-that she was looking at stars in the very act of
stealing gas from one another, a spectacle she had never before beheld except
in plates from Starlab or the old Kecks.
She was so absorbed in the sight overhead that she wasn't aware Dannerman was
coming up to her until he called her name, and then she jumped. "Jesus,
Dan-Dan! What are you doing up?"
"Time to relieve you," he said, following her example and staring toward the
east. "What the hell's that? It looks like something you'd see under a
microscope?"
Well, it did; all filamentary and webby. But she was glad to be able to
explain something at least, when so little was explainable. "They're
exchanging matter. Stars can do that when they're close, and some of those are
probably nearer each other than Pluto is to the Sun. So you're looking at the
naked hearts of stars, Dan. If our models of star evolution are right," she
went on, warming to the subject, "some of those stars used to be red giants,
but when the gas was stripped away they were rejuvenated. They became what we
call 'blue stragglers,' with surface temperatures five or six times as hot as
our own Sun. The bad part of that," she began, but
Dannerman held up his hand.
"Please, Patsy. Don't tell me any bad parts right now, okay?' You better get
some sleep while you can. It's almost daylight."
And he was right about that, too, of course. Past the cobwebby gas streamers
the far horizon was beginning to lighten; and Patsy felt the sudden weight of
her fatigue. Gratefully enough she climbed onto the pallet that had been set
aside for her, Pat stirring gently as she came in, Rosaleen moaning faintly in
her sleep. It was not a comfortable bed. Whoever made it must have had skins
like armor plate, she thought, and closed her eyes.
But she hadn't told him what the bad part was.
The bad part was that some of those cannibal stars would sooner or later glut
themselves on the mass they had stolen from the others. And then there would
be a nova, maybe even a supernova, flooding the space around it with radiation
of all kinds ... at the congested distances of the globular cluster.
When might that happen? The astronomical time scale was far slower than the
human. Such things might take centuries to occur, but when they did-
When they did, this would not be a good place to be, and the life expectancy
of anyone out in the open under that suddenly lethal sky would be short
indeed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Patsy
Patsy woke up with bright sunlight outside the opening of the yurt and the
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sound of somebody yelling at somebody, not very near, but not all that far
away, either. When she peered out she saw that it was Dannerman who was doing
the yelling. The person he was yelling at was Pat, placidly
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0Other%20End%20Of%20Time.txt hanging her underwear on a tree branch to dry.
"It's just damn foolish for you to go wandering off by yourself," he scolded.
"Who knows what's out there?"
"But you said yourself we needed to check out our surroundings," Pat said
reasonably, adjusting the bra to catch the sun.
"Not alone!"
"No," she said, acknowledging the justice of what he said- but not, Patsy
thought, particularly penitent about it, either. "I should have waited till
the others woke up. But, Dan, I found this lovely pond just a little way down
the stream, and I got a bath. Well, sort of a bath-no soap, of course, and it
was really cold-but I can't tell you how much better I feel. Maybe the two of
us can go out later?" And then, looking past him, "Well, good morning, Patsy.
Did you have a nice sleep?"
Damn the woman, Patsy thought. Damn the man, too; they might as well be
married if they were going to squabble like that. She didn't answer, simply
turned and headed for the bushes. Then, delighting in the luxury of being able
at last to pee without an audience, she relented. She was just jealous, she
admitted to herself. Not merely jealous of the Dan-Pat relationship, although
she was certainly envious of that, but extremely jealous of the bath.
On the way back she paused to peer down the stream and, yes, she was nearly
sure that, just past where the brook made a bend around a grove of tall,
emerald-leaved trees, there was a definite widening. That went right to the
top of her list of priorities. Not to be taken advantage of just yet, maybe;
she hadn't missed Pat's complaint about the cold, but as soon as the air
warmed up a little . . .
It was astonishing how that thought elevated her mood. She glanced up, and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]