Дэймон Найт - Orbit 9

At first there was moisture and subtle, spicy flavors. This combination gave way to the rich texture of the worm itself, with a sweet abiding ripeness that Lobthar could savor for an eternity. At length, Lobthar swallowed the worm.

After the time of morning feeding, which stretched almost beyond memory of the dawn, Lobthar rose once more into his air and settled back upon his water, where he floated, paddling, rocking himself on the gentle waves. Here was the recreated time of the egg, when the universe was constricted in warm comfort and his surroundings were composed of fluid slowly moving in convection currents.

Lobthar willed that there be a sound in the sky. There was a sound in the sky.

Lobthar looked up, toward the sound. A spot grew, and Lobthar willed that it grow larger and assume the form of a fire there in the sky. Lobthar brought this fire to the forest for his own amusement, and in the last minute, gave it the form of a cylinder.

Around the cylinder, invisible in the trees, there were now flames, as was only appropriate. Lobthar watched the flames, and gradually the flames went away to leave smoke. Lobthar found this good. Lobthar was continually amazed at the fertility of his own imagination. Now a new thing was introduced for his amusement into the universe. At another time, if he did not forget it, he would investigate this new thing in detail, but for now there was the comforting motion of the water beneath him and the comforting feeling of the air moving among the feathers.

The following day, Lobthar, having forgotten the arrival of the cylinder, came upon it unexpectedly as he made a soaring flight over his forest. Seeing it below him, he recalled how he had willed its appearance before the rains of the previous day.

Lobthar perched in a tree. At length, he willed an opening to appear in the cylinder and a creature to come out of the opening. There were no wings on it, but rather wingless extremities. Lobthar was at a loss to know what to cause the creature to do. Fall to the earth and dig worms? Ascend into the air?

Lobthar approached, swirling down, causing the creature to draw away from the fearsome sight of Lobthar. Lobthar settled to the ground at the foot of the creature and looked up. It made a noise, as Lobthar willed it should. There was much unexpected color to it, and Lobthar willed that it give off a bad odor. This it did.

Lobthar wondered what to make it do now. Make it approach cautiously and deferentially? This it did. Now what?

An extremity extended cautiously, as was appropriate, and touched the feathers of Lobthar. Lobthar moved forward a step to facilitate further touching, which occurred. Lobthar was then lifted up. This was exactly as Lobthar had intended.

The creature turned toward the cylinder, carrying Lobthar with it. Lobthar thought it would be very interesting indeed to know what was inside the cylinder, and in response to the wish, the creature entered it.

Inside there was an unexpected fertility of imagination. Lobthar was placed on a vantage point along the wall. Desiring to learn more of the imagination of Lobthar, he settled himself to further conjecture.

At last, after an endless day of unusually bright fantasies, Lobthar went to sleep.

Upon awakening, Lobthar perceived yesterday’s universe unchanged. Mesmerized by it, Lobthar returned to the egg, and the warmth and comfort there: when he dwelt in great fluid silence. At length, he reexperienced the constriction of that tiny universe and the need to burst forth into some greater projection of the mind’s devising. To do so required exertion reexperienced. In time the restraining barriers fell away, and lo! there was revealed the world of Lobthar, bright and shiny, rare and wonderful, filled with sensations previously unknown. Indeed, such stirrings always gave him the greatest pleasure in memory, and he responded with an enthusiasm that transcends description. Let there be light! Let there be sound! Let there be air to fly in! Let there be motion to excite the imagination! And also let there be food worms stirring in the appropriate places in the soil, the taste of which came forward in anticipation of the need.

At this point, Lobthar felt a desire for food worms, but the surface beneath him was unsuited to them. It was clearly and evidently not the time for him to will food worms, in spite of the inward desire. For there is a time for all things, and now was the time for glittering surroundings.

At length he willed sound, and there was sound. At length he willed the return of the creature, and it was so. He imagined that there was the smell of food worms upon the creature, and this was so. Lo! There were the food worms, and the creature brought the food worms to Lobthar, and Lobthar ate the food worms. They were as before, since they need never be otherwise for full enjoyment.

At length the creature was willed to depart and this too it did, and Lobthar was left once again with this new world. It might be, Lobthar realized, that he would find it more pleasant to remain here than outside among the trees and the water.

The memory of the water brought doubt, as did the memory of the air, and of the smells beyond this enclosure, and of the joy one had in the colors in the sky as one dictated one’s requirements. Still, it would be well to consider carefully before a change of position.

At length, Lobthar willed the return of the creature. The creature, as was appropriate, removed Lobthar from the cage and carried him along a corridor, exposing Lobthar to greater miracles of his imagination than even he would have thought possible.

Lobthar surrendered himself to still another creature, and this creature carried Lobthar to a small table and held him against it. Lobthar could feel the smoothness and the coolness of the new surface, and Lobthar’s nostrils were assailed by strange and wonderful odors not previously experienced.

This new creature drew back Lobthar’s wings to inspect them and to marvel at them, and Lobthar wished that the creature would hold him more tightly, and this it did, until the tension became almost a pain to Lobthar, and Lobthar moved to cause the tension to depart, and then realized that he did not wish it to depart; rather, he wished to relax and enjoy it.

Now Lobthar willed that the creature cover his head with a cloth from which arose a very pungent odor, and Lobthar drifted with the odor, back into time, as he called up imagination of the world beyond the cylinder and his first creation of land and water and light and darkness, and by degrees, Lobthar became aware that he was willing himself to sleep, and that the sleep would be long and deep like the sleep of the egg, which he could remember but dimly now, and the odors around him of his own willing were sweet and soft and sleepy and sleepy and very sleepy and Lobthar was willing himself deeper and deeper to sleep, more deeply than ever before.

The creature drew forth a dissecting knife, but Lobthar had his eyes closed and had not willed it, so the knife did not yet exist. He drifted deeper and deeper to sleep: at last indifferently aware of a strange new and penetrating device in his universe.

Eight hours before we were due to land on Sarg they dropped a pamphlet into the receiving tray of the two-by-four plastic closet that was my “stateroom” for the trip. The pamphlet said landing on Sarg would be like stepping into a new world. I threw it away.

Landing on Sarg was like stepping into a new world. You expect a different kind of sunlight and a fresh smell to the air, and usually you don’t get them. Sarg had them. The light ran to sienna and umber and ocher, so that everything looked older than it was and made you think of waxed oak and tarnished gold. The air was clear and clean. Sarg wasn’t an industrial world, and since it was one of the lucky ones with no life of its own to preserve, it had received a flora en masse from Earth. I saw Colorado spruce, and a lot of the old, hardy, half-wild roses like Sarah Van Fleet and Amelie Gravereaux.