[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Meanwhile, the remaining hydrogen was in a thick, dense shell around the
helium core. It was fusing faster than ever producing more heat than
ever pressing ever more insistently on the mantle of thinner gases that
surrounded it; and the mantle was bloating under the pressure.
Wan-To had never stayed inside a star as it left its main sequence before. He
didn t like it.
To be sure, his physical safety was not in danger. Well, not in much danger,
anyway
certainly not as much as risking a hurried flight of his own to another home.
But the star had swelled immensely under the thrust of that inner shell of
fusing hydrogen. If it had had planets, as
Earth s Sun did, its outer fringes would have been past the orbit of Mars by
now. It was a classical red giant, swollen as huge as Betelgeuse or
Antares beginning to decay.
Did that give Wan-To more room? Infuriatingly, it did not. His star s mass did
not increase. There was no more matter to fill that enlarged volume than there
had been when it was its proper, normal size. Indeed there was less, because
it was beginning to fall apart. The outer reaches of the star were so distant
from the core and so tenuous by Earthly standards, in fact very close to a
vacuum that the radiation pressure from within was actually shoving the
farthest gases away from the star entirely. Before long those outer regions
would separate completely to form that useless shell of detached gases called
a planetary nebula.
And Wan-To knew that then nothing but the core would remain for him to occupy.
A
miserable little white dwarf, no larger than an ordinary solid-matter planet
like the Earth far too cramped to be a suitable home for anyone like Wan-To!
For that matter, he was too crowded already. He dared not risk any part of his
precious self in those wispy outer fringes. He was imprisoned in the remaining
habitable parts of his star, and worst of all he was blind. Photon-blind, at
least; he could still detect neutrinos and tachyons and a few other particles,
because they reached inside the outer shells easily enough. But light
couldn t, and neither could any other part of the electromagnetic spectrum,
and his delicate external eyes had long since been swallowed up and ruined
as his star swelled.
So Wan-To tossed and turned in the home that had become his prison, fretfully
ignoring every call that came in. Each one, in fact, was a fresh annoyance, if
Page 110
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
not simply a trap.
Then a voice on the ERP pair called again, and this time it did not stop with
his name.
Wan-To, it said, this is Mromm. I am quite sure you are alive. I want to
propose a bargain.
Wan-To paused, suspicious and worried. Mromm! After all these eons!
It was a great temptation to answer. He was tired of being lonely and
imprisoned; and it was surely possible, at least barely possible, that Mromm s
intentions were friendly.
It was also possible, however, that they were not. Wan-To did not reply.
The voice came again. Wan-To, please speak to me. The object that Haigh-tik
destroyed wasn t you, was it? You wouldn t let yourself be caught that way,
I m positive.
278
THE WORLD AT THE END OF TIME
Frederik Pohi
279
Wan-To thought furiously. So it was Haigh-tik who was the killer! Or,
alternatively, Mromm who was hoping to make Wan-To think he was innocent?
Mromm s voice sighed. Wan-To, this is foolish. All the others are dead now,
or hiding. I
think Pooketih, at least, is simply hiding, but that comes to the same
thing he wouldn t dare to do anything just now, because then you or I might
find him. I don t think there is anybody else.
Won t you please answer me?
Wan-To forced himself to be still. All of his senses were at maximum alert as
he tried to decode Mromm s hidden meanings if indeed they were hidden; if it
weren t perhaps true that he was telling the truth?
And then Mromm, sounding dejected, said, All right, Wan-To, I won t insist
you speak to me. Let me just tell you what I have to say. I m going to leave
this galaxy, Wan-To. It s getting very unpleasant now. Sooner or later
Haigh-tik will come out again, and he ll be just trying to kill everybody else
off all over again if there are any of us left. So I m going away.
And what I want to say to you, Wan-To is please let me go!
To all of that Wan-To was listening with increasing pleasure and even the
beginnings of hope. If it were true that Mromm was leaving this used-up galaxy
(and that sounded like a good idea, even if it came from Mromm), and that
Haigh-tik was holed up and out of action at least for the time being, and all
the others were either dead or, like Pooketih, terminally stupid . . . [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl exclamation.htw.pl
Meanwhile, the remaining hydrogen was in a thick, dense shell around the
helium core. It was fusing faster than ever producing more heat than
ever pressing ever more insistently on the mantle of thinner gases that
surrounded it; and the mantle was bloating under the pressure.
Wan-To had never stayed inside a star as it left its main sequence before. He
didn t like it.
To be sure, his physical safety was not in danger. Well, not in much danger,
anyway
certainly not as much as risking a hurried flight of his own to another home.
But the star had swelled immensely under the thrust of that inner shell of
fusing hydrogen. If it had had planets, as
Earth s Sun did, its outer fringes would have been past the orbit of Mars by
now. It was a classical red giant, swollen as huge as Betelgeuse or
Antares beginning to decay.
Did that give Wan-To more room? Infuriatingly, it did not. His star s mass did
not increase. There was no more matter to fill that enlarged volume than there
had been when it was its proper, normal size. Indeed there was less, because
it was beginning to fall apart. The outer reaches of the star were so distant
from the core and so tenuous by Earthly standards, in fact very close to a
vacuum that the radiation pressure from within was actually shoving the
farthest gases away from the star entirely. Before long those outer regions
would separate completely to form that useless shell of detached gases called
a planetary nebula.
And Wan-To knew that then nothing but the core would remain for him to occupy.
A
miserable little white dwarf, no larger than an ordinary solid-matter planet
like the Earth far too cramped to be a suitable home for anyone like Wan-To!
For that matter, he was too crowded already. He dared not risk any part of his
precious self in those wispy outer fringes. He was imprisoned in the remaining
habitable parts of his star, and worst of all he was blind. Photon-blind, at
least; he could still detect neutrinos and tachyons and a few other particles,
because they reached inside the outer shells easily enough. But light
couldn t, and neither could any other part of the electromagnetic spectrum,
and his delicate external eyes had long since been swallowed up and ruined
as his star swelled.
So Wan-To tossed and turned in the home that had become his prison, fretfully
ignoring every call that came in. Each one, in fact, was a fresh annoyance, if
Page 110
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
not simply a trap.
Then a voice on the ERP pair called again, and this time it did not stop with
his name.
Wan-To, it said, this is Mromm. I am quite sure you are alive. I want to
propose a bargain.
Wan-To paused, suspicious and worried. Mromm! After all these eons!
It was a great temptation to answer. He was tired of being lonely and
imprisoned; and it was surely possible, at least barely possible, that Mromm s
intentions were friendly.
It was also possible, however, that they were not. Wan-To did not reply.
The voice came again. Wan-To, please speak to me. The object that Haigh-tik
destroyed wasn t you, was it? You wouldn t let yourself be caught that way,
I m positive.
278
THE WORLD AT THE END OF TIME
Frederik Pohi
279
Wan-To thought furiously. So it was Haigh-tik who was the killer! Or,
alternatively, Mromm who was hoping to make Wan-To think he was innocent?
Mromm s voice sighed. Wan-To, this is foolish. All the others are dead now,
or hiding. I
think Pooketih, at least, is simply hiding, but that comes to the same
thing he wouldn t dare to do anything just now, because then you or I might
find him. I don t think there is anybody else.
Won t you please answer me?
Wan-To forced himself to be still. All of his senses were at maximum alert as
he tried to decode Mromm s hidden meanings if indeed they were hidden; if it
weren t perhaps true that he was telling the truth?
And then Mromm, sounding dejected, said, All right, Wan-To, I won t insist
you speak to me. Let me just tell you what I have to say. I m going to leave
this galaxy, Wan-To. It s getting very unpleasant now. Sooner or later
Haigh-tik will come out again, and he ll be just trying to kill everybody else
off all over again if there are any of us left. So I m going away.
And what I want to say to you, Wan-To is please let me go!
To all of that Wan-To was listening with increasing pleasure and even the
beginnings of hope. If it were true that Mromm was leaving this used-up galaxy
(and that sounded like a good idea, even if it came from Mromm), and that
Haigh-tik was holed up and out of action at least for the time being, and all
the others were either dead or, like Pooketih, terminally stupid . . . [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]