Grammar Practice PRE INTERMEDIATE
35. Porterfield Marie Kwiat pustyni
Boswell Barbara za wszelka cene #
02. Hudson Jan Wstć…p do mojego salonu
Collins Joan Diabelnie sśÂ‚awna(1)
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of tight
to pierce the sfygian gloom.
A wish at once fulfilled, for even as I turned, the darkness just
behind me
split, a shaft of burning, shimmering light spilling out
across those dead lands.
The Gateway! And there before it the pool'And finally - there at the
pool's far
edge - myself, a stick-like creature of sinew and bone, sat back upon
its heels,
both hands shielding those obscenely bulging eyes against the blinding
light,
the mouth gaping, an expression of pure awe on the emaciated face.
I knew the moment. Knew that in that one instant the vision had been
imprinted w
me; the seed of light sown deep in the rich, dark earth of my psyche -
the same
seed that would one day drive me up and out until I finally reached the
stars.
Back I'd gone. Back in time. But why?
It did not see me there. Did not, or maybe could not, it was so bright.
Yet the
three who came down from the Above -Lehmann, Berdichev and Wyatt - he
did see.
Oh yes, he saw them and trembled, thinking them gods, gaping as the
unrelenting
tight glittered off the glass of their tall, domed helmets and the
silvered
metal of their contamination suits.
The child's screech - my screech, I guess it was - surprised me. It was
a raw,
high-pitched sound that seemed almost to have been torn from deep
within the
stick-like creature. Yet even as it faded, two shots rang out, the
sound of
their concussions deafening in that enclosed space.
I stared, shocked, at the smoking gun in Berdichev's hand.
Horrified, I took a step towards myself. 'No-oh!'
But already things were losing substance. Even as the life-blood pumped
from my
other self, even as the three men turned, surprised, to stare at me, so
the
world about me - the three men, the Gate, the Qay itself- shimmered
like a film
that has had every other frame removed.
And then, with a suddenness that literally took my breath, I was back
here, in
this room, the image of the burning hoop fading in the air."
Kim looked up thoughtfully, giving a little nod to the air, then read
on,
devouring the pages.
After a while he sat back, rubbing at his eyes. He was beginning to
understand,
to see what K. had meant about the narrowness of the spectrum in which
they
existed. Gates. The gate by the pool had been the first, but there had
been
endless gates in his life. In this existence he had passed through all
of them
unscathed, or relatively so, yet in another life ...
No, he corrected himself, in other lives.
In other lives he'd failed. In some he had not even begun. Oh yes, he
saw it
clearly now. Endless worlds in which he had not existed. Worlds where
he had not
met and married Jelka and so had not conceived Sampsa or Mileja. Worlds
where
DeVore had triumphed because he, Kim Ward, had not been there to
counter him.
Or was that the truth? Had he really made a difference?He looked back
down,
reading on, the hairs rising on the back of his neck.
It was almost two hours before he looked up again. K. was sitting just
across
from him. Kim blinked, surprised. He had not even noticed him return.
"So?" K. asked. "What do you think?"
What did he think? The accounts that had followed the first were all
equally
graphic. And always, without fail, he'd died. It was as if his life had
been a
maze and at any point along the way he might have made the wrong turn
and come
upon a dead end. His end. His death.
His tutor, T'ai Cho, who in this life had loved him and cherished him,
yes and
saved him many a time - particularly that time after the fight with
Janko when
Director Andersen would have trashed him without a second thought - in
other
worlds had gassed him, unable to see the light of intelligence that
burned
within him.
And even when he'd made it through - to Rehab and beyond - it was to
die in
stupid, silly ways, in accidents, or at the hands of overzealous
guards. Or, in
the worst case, at the hands of Marshal Karr - executed on Li Yuan's
palace
steps as an uncaring Jelka looked on with dispassionate eyes.
To have survived at all was a miracle of kinds.
So what did he think?
"I think someone must have trod these paths before us. To find us, I
mean."
"Master Tuan?"
"He certainly implied as much."
K. blinked, surprised. "Did he?"
"You mean he hasn't spoken to you?"
"Yes, but not of that Not of seeking and finding us."
Kim sat back. "I remember him telling me something once, about that
time after
the attack on SimFic's labs, when he found me and looked after me. He
told me
that he'd first dreamed of me, and then, how he had later followed the
dream,
step for step, and how it had come true, almost though if he were still
dreaming. And yet it was real. It really had come to pass, almost as if
there
were but a single path to follow. But
now... well, now we are in a hall of mirrors, and who is to say which
path is
the right path, and which dream the reality?" "Then maybe thaf s our
purpose,
Kim. To make things singular again. To unify the universes, so that
there's only
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