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George's last few words and fell silent.
_"And we're wasting the time we have,"_ thought Richard. _"Cut it
short, George!"_ Thankfully, he saw the icerug bodies ahead of them begin to
move their carpet edges apart, opening a clear path of ice for the humans to
walk on, while Golden-Glint indicated with a graceful sweep of three of its
tentacles that the visitors were to accompany them.
The procession moved quickly. The icerug seemed to move effortlessly,
and the humans marched as fast as was comfortable.
"Ahead, you will observe the Grand Portal. This is the main entrance
into our Great Meeting Hall."
They were approaching the decorated opening of a tunnel, going down
into the ice. This tall entrance portal was constructed of beautifully
polished and elaborately carved rocks, closely fitted together. As they
descended along the gleaming icy path lined with hundreds of threads of icerug
flesh, Richard noted and commented to the others through their private imp
link, "There, at the bottom of the walls. Those are nickel-iron meteorites --
very strong building materials if you can get them. And there, up above, the
composition of the arch changes to volcanic rock -- light, but still strong.
Look how high that arch is!"
They were all impressed with the size of the entrance hallway. The
ceiling above them, vaulted with rock and roofed with what looked like bars of
ice, soared higher than the entryways in many medieval cathedrals. They
finally entered a gigantic room with the roof supported by stone arches rising
from thick stone pedestal bases.
"It's the low gravity here, I guess," murmured Richard. "Even with all
the mass of ice and snow on top, they can still build these tremendously tall
and wide arches."
Deirdre said nothing, her whole attention caught with the spectacle
around her. Hundreds of icerug nodes were in the gigantic meeting hall, which
still seemed almost empty, so vast were its spaces. Each icerug was emitting a
spot of blue bioluminescent light from a dished-in portion of their spherical
head section of their node, and all the soft blue "spotlights" were pointed in
their direction. The light from all those concave spots was also reflected
from the stone walls, polished to a mirror sheen, and in addition, was
reflected off all the eyes on the ends of the eye stalks, focussed upon the
visitors. Deirdre was reminded of a field of sunflowers, with herself as the
sun, and was enchanted. George, less happily, remembered his first graduation
ceremony, and hoped he wouldn't trip.
Accompanied by the Presider, the humans moved to a clear floor area
seemingly set aside for them. There was nothing upon which a human could sit,
or even lean; all three were resigned to this, and adopted a relaxed stance
they could maintain indefinitely. Golden-Glint was speaking again; they caught
the glitter of something held by two of the alien's tentacles. It was a small
sheet of ice that Golden-Glint held in front of its concave illuminator while
"reading" from it with its large eye, occasionally glancing up to look at the
humans or the attentive audience. The humans watched fascinated, as the upper
edge of the sheet apparently melted, and was absorbed by the tentacle holding
it from above, while the speech was being read. Golden-Glint finally
concluded.
"We know you will enjoy hearing our Orchestra and Chorus from the
Center of Musical Studies. They shall perform for you now."
Amazed, the humans realized that a large segment of the surrounding
crowds was arranged in orderly rows; each individual holding a small sheet of
rock between two tentacles. Some of the others held curious objects which were
revealed to be musical instruments; varieties of chimes could be seen, and all
sorts of drums. There were also strange shapes mounted with taut strands,
which were plucked or bowed. All three humans wished suddenly that David were
with them. The rest of the musicians constituted a large chorus, and the music
which burst forth from this alien combination was wonderfully deep and
compelling to Deirdre.
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"Fond I am of the low bass tones," she murmured to the others through
their private imp link, "but I never before heard a song where the highest
note in it was middle C!" She listened with delight; for the first time she
forgot her professional determination to distance herself emotionally from
this alien life-form. Richard and George were studying the various instruments
intently, memorizing as many different structures as they could see, to relate
later to David, and hoping that the video monitor cameras in their helmets had
enough resolution to capture the details of construction.
"That chime is surely icicle-based, and the drum-frame is either ice or
some sort of rock," remarked George through their link. "But what is the
drum-head made of? From the pattern, it looks like snake skin or fish skin,
but it's too large for that."
Similarly Richard was trying to analyze the uniform sheets every
musician held. "They must be thin slices of rock, that's exactly what they
look like, and they're covered with tiny squiggles. Can it be they're reading
from them?"
Richard enjoyed the performance, although he was not as absorbed in it
as Deirdre; rather, he was hoping that the concert would be brief, so that
some of the many questions occurring to him could be asked. George was [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]