Visions of the Future Read Online Free PDF Page B

He felt it drying his face, assumed it was doing so to the rest of his body. He formed a new appreciation for the miracle of rain and the process by which it’s transformed into blood and lymph and cells. Amazing, astonishing accomplishment; and he’d spent a short lifetime taking it for granted. He deserved to die.
    I am growing philosophical, he thought. Or delirious.
    Short days gave way to brief nights. He had completely lost track of time when the first bug found him.
    Pearson felt it long before he saw it. It crawled up his cheek. Maddeningly, he was unable to scratch at it or brush it away. It traversed his face, stopped, and peered into his right eye.
    He blinked.
    The tickle returned. He hadn’t caught it, then. It was on his forehead now. After pausing there, it walked down across his left cheek, retracing its first approach.
    Out of the corner of his left eye he saw it as it dropped to his shoulder. It was blue-black and too small for him to discern individual details. It definitely looked like an insect.
    It stopped on his shoulder, considering its surroundings.
    Maybe it would be better this way, he thought. It would be faster if the bugs devoured him. When he’d bled enough, he would die. If they started below his head, he might never feel any pain before he passed out.
    Silently, he encouraged the insect. Go on, buddy. Bring back your aunts and uncles and cousins and have yourselves a feast, courtesy of Pearson. It’ll be a blessing.
    “No, we cannot do that.”
    I’m delirious, he mused distantly, adding in reflex, “Why not?”
    “You are a wonderment. We could not eat a wonderment. We are not deserving enough.”
    “I’m no wonder,” he thought insistently. “I’m a wastrel, a failure, a thorough mistake of nature. Not only that,” he concluded, “I am lying here conversing telepathically with a bug.”
    “I am Yirn, one of the People,” the soft thought informed him. “I am not what a bug is. Tell me, wonderment, how can something so huge be alive?”
    So Pearson told him. He told the bug his name, and about mankind, and about his sick, sad existence that was soon to come to an end, and about his paralysis.
    “I am saddened for you,” Yirn of the People finally said. “We can do nothing to help you. We are a poor tribe among many and are not permitted by the Laws to reproduce much. Nor do I begin to understand these strange things you tell me of space and time and size.
    I find it hard enough to believe that this mountain you lie within once moved. Yet you say that is so, and I must believe.”
    Pearson had a sudden, disturbing thought. “Hey, look, Yirn. Don’t get the idea I’m any sort of god or anything. I’m just bigger, that’s all. I’m really less than you. I couldn’t even make a good pimp.”
    “The concept does not translate.” Yirn gave the impression of straining. “You are the most wonderful thing in all creation.”
    “Bullshit. Say… how can I ‘talk’ with you when you’re so much smaller?”
    “Among our People we have a saying that it is the size of the intellect that is important, not the size of the size.”
    “Yeah, I guess. Look, I’m sorry you’ve got such a poor tribe, Yirn; and I appreciate your being sorry for me. No one’s ever been sorry for me before except me. Even a bug’s sympathy’s an improvement.” He lay quietly for a while, regarding the bug, which preened minute antennae.
    “I… I wish I could do something for you and your tribe,” he finally said, “but I can’t even help myself. I’m going to die of hunger soon.”
    “We would help if we could,” came the thought. Pearson had a feeling of sadness all out of proportion to the creature’s size. “But all we could gather would not feed you properly for a day.”
    “Yeah. There’s food in my suit pack, but…” He fell silent. Then, “Yirn, tell me if there are shiny metal coverings on my lower body.”
    Moments passed while the insect made a hike to the