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.While his thoughts scrambled and seethed hopefully, the self-lightin Vipunen’s brain cells brightened.Grudgingly.Vipunen pushedlanguid probes into this life-molecule that had intruded his brainand scooped out bits of information about it.“Who are you? What are you doing in my mind?”Now the questions were clear-cut and acid pungent.Vipunen wasannoyed.“I am of the Vanhat!” Wayne forgot himself in his anxiety andyelled aloud.“We live in a microscopic universe far below you, OVipunen! I come to beg a boon!” He put humility into his shout anda tincture of reverence.It seemed fitting to speak to the Outspacegiant as to some manner of deity.Besides, it might help.Vipunen’sbody was amass with destroyers.Silence.The light converged, intensified on Wayne so that he hadto clap shut his eyes or go blind from it.Vipunen was reading himfurther.“What is this boon?” Vipunen thundered, as if he already knewor guessed.Wayne breathed in deep for courage.This was his moment.Andby his moment hung the future of nine planets and an Empire.Thatit must have happened so as to produce Wayne Panu and hismoment, paradoxically, did not signify.Wainomoinen had said it:Ilmatar weaves many patterns.He was suddenly engulfed by a shuddering sense of insignificancethat included the whole of his universe.Of what possibleimportance could this be to Vipunen? What he had to say? Thegreen valleys.The killing cold.The descending wall of ice.Hissudden vertigo dizzied him to his knees.“Give us back our sun!” he blurted.Vipunen was still tired.His rest had been interrupted.He wascranky, bristly as a bear whose hibernation has been cut short by apersistant flea.“Give us back our sun!” Wayne shouted again.“You drained outthe energy from it.Put it back before it is too late!”The light receded, abruptly.Other factions of Vipunen’s infinite brain were involved withother problems, more important ones.The twilit wait was agony.Wayne’s arms and legs went numb with cramp.He dragged to hisfeet and paced the high gloomy cavern and the river’s edge inhopeless frenzy.How had he dared? How could he possibly hope towin out against a creature like Vipunen?Even Louhi hadn’t believed him.Not quite.The whole thingabout Wayne performing three great deeds to win Varjo was acharade to her, too! She was not that easily fooled.He had tried tofool her by falling in with what-ever tasks she set.Killing Hüsi’sElk.Plowing off the heads of the Worms of Manala.Leering overVarjo, poor lost gamine that she was…“Die, Starman!” He could almost hear her cackling about it now,as he had telepathed her small slips.“Perhaps you think that bymarrying Varjo you will lord it over Pohyola after I am gone? Isthat it? I will never be gone! I’m eternal and Pohyola is eternal! It isyou who will be gone and the sooner the better.You with yourmiserable pretensions, your single feeble life-span! Thus do I destroyall heroes who suck on the paps of the Power! Ai! Even Ukkohimself cannot overcome Louhi of Pohyola!”Vipunen must have gone back to sleep, damn him!Rage possessed Wayne now.A passion of white-hot rage.Themonstrous ape! Going around gobbling up stars like gumdrops,never stopping to consider what havoc he was bringing to wholecivilizations! The Fleet, with their planetary all-kill, were appalling.But this—this—!“Vipunen!” he screamed.“Wake up! Fetch our sun out of yourhideous belly and put it back where it belongs! Damn your infinitehide!”He fisted out the sacred pukko and jabbed the side-wall, over andover.It was as nothing, but it was all he could do.Slowly the light increased, pulsing circles that had theirconcentric apex in Wayne.“I know what it is that you want me to do.I know.And I coulddo it if I wanted to.It has not yet been assimilated.It is storeddown in my tissues.”“Then do it! Now!” Wayne raged.“Why? Why should I bother? The crafty little mite-mind thaturged me to take it promised me the rarest of treats.It was hardlythat.Very second-rate, in fact.”“Wouldn’t you like to get back at the witch?” Wayne prompted.“Do her in the eyes for putting you to all that trouble for so little?”Vipunen yawned.“It would give me mild pleasure, yet the troubleI would go to in returning the energy to your puny star would onlybe compounded.No.I think not.Go away, thing.”Wayne’s brain exploded.He must persuade the giant at all costs.Vipunen appeared to be a self-centered snob and a sufferer fromincredible ennui, but he had to have a weak point and Wayne mustfind it.Wayne went into a passionate plea for Terra, describing indetail the wondrous beauty of the wide shaggy forests, thethundering seas, the people, the—Halfway, he stopped.No good.Vipunen was drowsing again.“Go away, thing.Go away and let me sleep.”“I can’t! Not until I get what I came for!”“I am offering you your life.Go away, before I am forced to flickout your existence.”Wayne leaped about as despair began to overwhelm him.Hescreamed curses at the giant.He begged, pleaded, cajoled.Then heranted and swore at him some more.“Away, thing,” Vipunen said.“I have had an exhaustingmillenium and I am very weary.And I am beginning to becomevexed with you, thing.”“How—how long will you sleep?” Wayne gasped.“A few centuries more, by your reckoning.”“Centuries!”Wayne’s heart and soul dragged the slimes of Manala.Vipunenthe Infinite’s time schedule was in ration to its size; his days wereTerra’s light-years.“Please—!” he bawled.“Listen to me!”“I have listened.And I have refrained from allowing myanti-virus armies to kill you, as they are eager to do.You havebothered me far too long already.Goodbye, thing.”The light dimmed.Vipunen slept, and from the capillary riverWayne heard a multitudinous wave of approaching sound.Vipunen’s white blood-armies were moving toward the viral bit ofexistence that was irritating the giant’s brain cells, moving in for thekill.XIV« ^The white killers, always on the lookout for microbal and viralintrusion, seethed up hugely out of the capillary in a chittering surgeof determination.They were like a bubbling surf moving on him.Wayne stared in a fascination of terror.There were millions of them.Millions of infection fighters, all to rid Vipunen or one infinitesmalscrag, one organic driblet, one ort, one thing.Wayne backed away from the cleansing surf and into one of thegreat caves of sharply defined cells.He was sweating in every porefrom the sudden heat [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.While his thoughts scrambled and seethed hopefully, the self-lightin Vipunen’s brain cells brightened.Grudgingly.Vipunen pushedlanguid probes into this life-molecule that had intruded his brainand scooped out bits of information about it.“Who are you? What are you doing in my mind?”Now the questions were clear-cut and acid pungent.Vipunen wasannoyed.“I am of the Vanhat!” Wayne forgot himself in his anxiety andyelled aloud.“We live in a microscopic universe far below you, OVipunen! I come to beg a boon!” He put humility into his shout anda tincture of reverence.It seemed fitting to speak to the Outspacegiant as to some manner of deity.Besides, it might help.Vipunen’sbody was amass with destroyers.Silence.The light converged, intensified on Wayne so that he hadto clap shut his eyes or go blind from it.Vipunen was reading himfurther.“What is this boon?” Vipunen thundered, as if he already knewor guessed.Wayne breathed in deep for courage.This was his moment.Andby his moment hung the future of nine planets and an Empire.Thatit must have happened so as to produce Wayne Panu and hismoment, paradoxically, did not signify.Wainomoinen had said it:Ilmatar weaves many patterns.He was suddenly engulfed by a shuddering sense of insignificancethat included the whole of his universe.Of what possibleimportance could this be to Vipunen? What he had to say? Thegreen valleys.The killing cold.The descending wall of ice.Hissudden vertigo dizzied him to his knees.“Give us back our sun!” he blurted.Vipunen was still tired.His rest had been interrupted.He wascranky, bristly as a bear whose hibernation has been cut short by apersistant flea.“Give us back our sun!” Wayne shouted again.“You drained outthe energy from it.Put it back before it is too late!”The light receded, abruptly.Other factions of Vipunen’s infinite brain were involved withother problems, more important ones.The twilit wait was agony.Wayne’s arms and legs went numb with cramp.He dragged to hisfeet and paced the high gloomy cavern and the river’s edge inhopeless frenzy.How had he dared? How could he possibly hope towin out against a creature like Vipunen?Even Louhi hadn’t believed him.Not quite.The whole thingabout Wayne performing three great deeds to win Varjo was acharade to her, too! She was not that easily fooled.He had tried tofool her by falling in with what-ever tasks she set.Killing Hüsi’sElk.Plowing off the heads of the Worms of Manala.Leering overVarjo, poor lost gamine that she was…“Die, Starman!” He could almost hear her cackling about it now,as he had telepathed her small slips.“Perhaps you think that bymarrying Varjo you will lord it over Pohyola after I am gone? Isthat it? I will never be gone! I’m eternal and Pohyola is eternal! It isyou who will be gone and the sooner the better.You with yourmiserable pretensions, your single feeble life-span! Thus do I destroyall heroes who suck on the paps of the Power! Ai! Even Ukkohimself cannot overcome Louhi of Pohyola!”Vipunen must have gone back to sleep, damn him!Rage possessed Wayne now.A passion of white-hot rage.Themonstrous ape! Going around gobbling up stars like gumdrops,never stopping to consider what havoc he was bringing to wholecivilizations! The Fleet, with their planetary all-kill, were appalling.But this—this—!“Vipunen!” he screamed.“Wake up! Fetch our sun out of yourhideous belly and put it back where it belongs! Damn your infinitehide!”He fisted out the sacred pukko and jabbed the side-wall, over andover.It was as nothing, but it was all he could do.Slowly the light increased, pulsing circles that had theirconcentric apex in Wayne.“I know what it is that you want me to do.I know.And I coulddo it if I wanted to.It has not yet been assimilated.It is storeddown in my tissues.”“Then do it! Now!” Wayne raged.“Why? Why should I bother? The crafty little mite-mind thaturged me to take it promised me the rarest of treats.It was hardlythat.Very second-rate, in fact.”“Wouldn’t you like to get back at the witch?” Wayne prompted.“Do her in the eyes for putting you to all that trouble for so little?”Vipunen yawned.“It would give me mild pleasure, yet the troubleI would go to in returning the energy to your puny star would onlybe compounded.No.I think not.Go away, thing.”Wayne’s brain exploded.He must persuade the giant at all costs.Vipunen appeared to be a self-centered snob and a sufferer fromincredible ennui, but he had to have a weak point and Wayne mustfind it.Wayne went into a passionate plea for Terra, describing indetail the wondrous beauty of the wide shaggy forests, thethundering seas, the people, the—Halfway, he stopped.No good.Vipunen was drowsing again.“Go away, thing.Go away and let me sleep.”“I can’t! Not until I get what I came for!”“I am offering you your life.Go away, before I am forced to flickout your existence.”Wayne leaped about as despair began to overwhelm him.Hescreamed curses at the giant.He begged, pleaded, cajoled.Then heranted and swore at him some more.“Away, thing,” Vipunen said.“I have had an exhaustingmillenium and I am very weary.And I am beginning to becomevexed with you, thing.”“How—how long will you sleep?” Wayne gasped.“A few centuries more, by your reckoning.”“Centuries!”Wayne’s heart and soul dragged the slimes of Manala.Vipunenthe Infinite’s time schedule was in ration to its size; his days wereTerra’s light-years.“Please—!” he bawled.“Listen to me!”“I have listened.And I have refrained from allowing myanti-virus armies to kill you, as they are eager to do.You havebothered me far too long already.Goodbye, thing.”The light dimmed.Vipunen slept, and from the capillary riverWayne heard a multitudinous wave of approaching sound.Vipunen’s white blood-armies were moving toward the viral bit ofexistence that was irritating the giant’s brain cells, moving in for thekill.XIV« ^The white killers, always on the lookout for microbal and viralintrusion, seethed up hugely out of the capillary in a chittering surgeof determination.They were like a bubbling surf moving on him.Wayne stared in a fascination of terror.There were millions of them.Millions of infection fighters, all to rid Vipunen or one infinitesmalscrag, one organic driblet, one ort, one thing.Wayne backed away from the cleansing surf and into one of thegreat caves of sharply defined cells.He was sweating in every porefrom the sudden heat [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]