Gregory Benford Second Foundation 01 Foundation's Fear

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Could a pan make the distance? Not likely, especially when tired. Sheelah
pointed to him and back to her, then held her hands out and made a swinging
motion. Could they swing across the distance?
He studied her face. The designer would not anticipate two pans cooperating
that way. He squinted up at the top. Too high to climb, even if Sheelah stood
on his shoulders.
Y^s, he signed.
A few moments later, her hands holding his feet, about to let go of his
branch, he had second thoughts.
Ipan didn't mind this bit of calisthenics, and in fact was happy to be back in
a tree. But Hari's human judgment still kept shouting that he could not
possibly do it. Natural pan talent conflicted with human caution.
Luckily, he did not have much time to indulge in self-doubt. Sheelah yanked
him off the branch. He fell, held only by her hands.
She had wrapped her feet securely around a thick branch and now began to
oscillate him like a weight on a string. She swung him back and forth,
increasing the amplitude. Back, forth, up, down, centrifugal pressure in his
head. To Ipan it was unremarkable.
To Hari it was a wheeling world of heart-stopping whirls.
Small branches brushed him and he worried about noise and then forgot about
that because his head was coming up level with the top of the wall.
The concrete lip was rounded off on the inside, so no hook could find a grip.
He swung back down, head plunging toward the ground. Then up into the lower
branches, twigs slapping his face.
On the next swing he was higher. All along the top of the wall thick glass
glinted. Very professional.
He barely had time to realize all this when she let him go.
He arced up, hands stretched out and barely caught the lip. If it had not
protectively protruded out, he would have missed.
He let his body slam against the side. His feet scrabbled for purchase against
the sheer face. A few toes got hold. He
heaved up, muscles bunching and over. Never before had he appreciated how much
stronger a pan could be. No man could have made it here.
He scrambled up, cutting his arm and haunch on glass. It was a delicate
business, getting to his feet and finding a place to stand.
A surge of triumph. He waved to Sheelah, invisible in the tree.
From here on it was up to him. He realized suddenly that they could have
fashioned some sort of rope, tying together vines. Then he could lift her up
here. Good idea, too late.
No point in delaying. The compound was partly visible through the trees, a few
lights burning. Utterly silent. They had waited until the night was about half
over; he had nothing but Ipan's gut feelings to tell him when.
FOUNDATION'S FEAR
423
He looked down. Just beyond his toes razor wire gleamed, set into the
concrete. Carefully he stepped between the shiny lines. There was room among
the sharp glass teeth to stand. A tree blocked his vision and he could see
little below him in the dim glow from the station. At least that meant they
couldn't see him, either.
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Should he jump? Too high. The tree that hid him was close, but he could not
see into it. He stood and thought, but nothing came to him. Meanwhile Sheelah
was behind him, alone, and he hated leaving her where dangers waited that he
did not even know.
He was thinking like a man and forgetting that he had the capability of a pan.
Go. He leaped. Twigs snapped and he plunged heavily in shadows. Branches
stabbed his face. He saw a dark shape to his right and so curled his legs,
rotated, hands out and snagged a branch. His hands closed easily around it and
he realized it was too thin, too thin
It snapped. The crack came like a thunderbolt to his ears. He fell, letting go
of the branch. His back hit something hard and he rolled, grappling for a
hold. His fingers closed around a thick branch and he swung from it. Finally
he let out a gasp.
Leaves rustled, branches swayed. Nothing more.
He was halfway up a tree. Aches sprouted in his joints, a galaxy of small
pains.
Hari relaxed and let Ipan master the descent. He had made far too much noise
falling in the tree, but there was no sign of any movement across the broad
lawns between him and the big, luminous station.
He thought of Dors and wished there were some way he could let her know he was
inside now. Thinking of her, he measured with his eye the distances from
nearby trees, memorizing the pattern so that he could find the way back at a
dead run if he had to.
Now what? He didn't have a plan.
Hari gently urged Ipan who was nervous and tired, barely controllable into a
triangular pattern of bushes. Ipan's mind was like a stormy sky split by
skittering lightning. Not thoughts precisely, more like knots of emotion,
forming and flashing around crisp kernels of anxiety. Patiently Hari summoned
up soothing images, getting Ipan's breathing slowed, and he almost missed the
whispery sound.
Nails scrabbling on a stone walkway. Something running fast.
They came around the triangle peak of bushes. Bunched muscles, sleek skin,
stubby legs eating up the remaining distance. They were well trained to seek
and kill soundlessly, without warning.
To Ipan the monsters were alien, terrifying. Ipan stepped back in panic before
the two onrushing bullets of muscle and bone. Black gums peeled back from
white teeth, bared beneath mad eyes. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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