Archiwum
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- Krauss Lawrence M. Fizyka podróśźy mić™dzygwiezdnych
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- Kindred of Arkadia 3 Fated for Forever Alanea Alder
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meteoric crater, Brian, and I mink
Curupuri came to this planet in a meteor. Perhaps it was the meteor.
It's life."
"The creator and the destroyer," Janissa put in quietly.
"Destroyer? Yes. There are forms of energy we know nothing about. Sometimes we
see them through telescopes, in the giant nebulae light-years away. The stuff
of primal energy, spawned in interstellar space, where that tremendous force
can safely exist. It can't exist safely on a planet. Not unless the planet is
still gaseous, still molten. Curupuri, the thing that fell on Brazil in a
meteor ages ago, is a source of life, Brian."
"A living thing?"
"Too colossal for us to conceive of or measure. You know the Arrhennius
theory, that life reached
Earth in the form of spores, drifting through space on light-pressure tides.
Well, that's fair enough, but what gave life to those spores?
"It's the old chicken or the egg problem, with a difference. The spores may
have been the dust, the waste-products of things like the nebulae. Or that
vast force raging in space may have had power to create life in dust, a galaxy
away. I don't know. I'm theorizing, that's all. But radiant energy, vibration,
power they're tied up with it, somehow."
Craddock's tired face brightened.
"And the merest fraction of that energy fell on Earth once, in a meteor. It
must have been a microscopic amount, for anything more would have devastated
the planet. Growth, unchecked. I
guessed some of that, and learned a little more, from records I found in
Paititi."
"Records? Left by whom?"
"I didn't know then. There was no one in the valley, no life except birds and
insects, peccary, tapir, and the jaguars. Remember the jaguars, Brian. They're
important. Meanwhile, I found those records in what is now Parror's castle.
"They weren't unlike the written Indio language. I suppose that's where the
Indies get their lingo in the first place. Anyway, I found out the truth.
Curupuri had given life to Paititi. The merest touch of that energy has made
the Amazon Basin the most fertile and prolific place on Earth."
Raft nodded.
"Keep going. How does this trick work?"
"In cycles. There are cycles in suns, giants and dwarfs, and in nebulae too,
though our lives are too short to comprehend them. When the Flame is at full
tide, a certain type of energy pours forth from it. The result is peculiar."
'Time is speeded up?"
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Slowly Craddock shook his head. "No. Not objectively. What happens is a
metabolic change. The rate
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e%20-%20uc.txt of growth is tremendously increased. Not only in men, in
mammals, but in all living things. When the Flame is at the top of its cycle,
a man may be born, live a complete life, and die in one'second. Yet it will be
a lifetime to him.
"Inanimate things are not affected, of course. The radiation won't make stone
crumble faster. It influences living cells only. The animal world, and plants.
That is what happened."
"The Flame wakened," Janissa supplemented. "And in its light all things sprang
to life."
"Yes. Long ago. But that cycle was more normal. The First Race, the one that
built these castles, Jived here, evolved, and and then the Flame sank. They
did not die. But apparently the radiation is a false stimulus.
"When the Flame's power falls below a certain level, its rays are actively
malignant. Cellular tissue may be stimulated, but it can also become
cancerous. When the Flame sinks, there is a retrogression. It's freakish.
It's horrible."
"I saw what was left of the First Race," Raft mentioned. "Those monsters in
the cavern."
"Yes. They saw their fate coming, and made plans. They were skilled
scientists. They found a way to rekindle the Flame before its cycle had been
run, but they failed to do it. Because it was dangerous. If they were not
accurate to a hair's breadth, if they failed to control the Flame exactly, it
would mean total destruction. The radiation would rage out unchecked. The
Flame would devour itself instantly, but in that instant Paititi would be
seared lifeless."
"They didn't do it, then."
"No. They waited. Each generation thought it could live out its own span. Each
generation let the problem go on to its children. And the children thought the
same. In the end, the beast-minds were too dull to comprehend.
"The creatures that had been the First Race remembered only the Flame, and
they found their way to the cavern where you saw them. Their nearness to the
radiation keeps them alive, and they've lived and bred there in the dark for a
long time."
Raft frowned.
"But the cat-people. How did they come into being?"
Craddock's eyes held a touch of deep horror. "I created them. I wakened the
Flame."
VIII KHARN, THE TERRIBLE
VISUALIZING THAT SCENE of thirty years ago, Raft could picture a younger
Craddock lost in wonder before the secrets he had uncovered, feeling a
dangerous exaltation burning in his mind, and, of all the world, the only man
who knew of that tremendous, intergalactic Force that blazed hidden in the
jungles. Yes, he could understand why Craddock might have been tempted to
meddle with forbidden forces.
"I wakened the Flame. The records I had found, they told the way. I couldn't
understand all of it, but I understood enough. Too much. That was when "
Craddock held up his maimed hands
"I succeeded and I failed," Craddock continued. "For the Flame wakened raging
with power, too much power, though it was far beneath its maximum. I was lucky
to escape as I did."
The worn face held horror again.
"Against that flaming terror I watched my hands change. I saw the living flesh
alter. I saw human tissues writhe and blacken into something that was was a
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blasphemy, Brian. Even as I ran, I could feel those things where my fingers
had been. I could feel them writhing!"
He drew a deep breath, went on more steadily.
"I escaped into the jungle, and there I amputated those horrors. I had my
surgical kit. There
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e%20-%20uc.txt wasn't sulfa in those days, but I managed. I thought then I'd
never go back to Paititi. My career was ruined, of course; my hands were not
hands.
"Yet something kept me in the Amazon Basin. I was too close to the Flame once;
part of it touched me, and I could never leave Brazil after that. Sometimes I
thought I could hear Curupuri in the
Jutahy drums."
He nodded.
"Then I did hear it, after thirty years. Parror brought something of the Flame
with him when he came down the river, and the Indios sensed it. That
incredible vitality sent its message through the jungle. When I saw Parror for
the first time, in the hospital, I felt that same life-energy I
had found in Paititi. It was faint, but I couldn't mistake it. I was afraid.
"Parror came to me in the laboratory and gave me my notebook. He'd traced me
through that. There's the woods-telegraph, and he knew my name. He'd left
Paititi on a crazy chance, hoping I was still alive, hoping to find me.
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