tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-945486051206557782.post3469237804762467875..comments2023-06-06T12:58:24.936-03:00Comments on Thibeau Time: Philosophy of the InternetAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10632933520581304507noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-945486051206557782.post-70080608532866205222012-04-21T12:57:58.451-03:002012-04-21T12:57:58.451-03:00Men who walked alone, in terrible loneliness, talk...Men who walked alone, in terrible loneliness, talking with their tongue like Boy Scouts wigwagging out their messages, unable to reach out and touch one another's mind as he could reach out and touch Towser's mind. Shut off forever from that personal, intimate contact with other living things.<br /><br />He, Fowler, had expected terror inspired by alien things out here on the surface, had expected to cover before the threat of unknown things, had steeled himself against disgust of a situation that was not of Earth.<br /><br />But instead he had found something greater than Man had ever known. A swifter, surer body. A sense of exhilaration, a deeper sense of life. A sharper mind. A world of beauty that even the dreamers of the Earth had not yet imagined.<br /><br />"Let's get going," Towser urged.<br /><br />"Where do you want to go?"<br /><br />"Anywhere," said Towser. "Just start going and see where we end up. I have a feeling ... well, a feeling --"<br /><br />"Yes, I know," said Fowler.<br /><br />For he had the feeling, too. The feeling of high destiny. A certain sense of greatness. A knowledge that somewhere off beyond the horizons lay adventure and things greater than adventure.<br /><br />Those other five had felt it, too. Had felt the urge to go and see, the compelling sense that here lay a life of fullness and of knowledge.<br />That, he knew, was why they had not returned.<br /><br />"I won't go back," said Towser.<br /><br />"We can't let them down," said Fowler.<br /><br />Fowler took a step or two, back toward the dome, then stopped.<br /><br />Back to the dome. Back to that aching, poison-laden body he had left. It hadn't seemed aching before, but now he knew it was.<br /><br />Back to the fuzzy brain. Back to muddled thinking. Back to the flapping mouths that formed signals others understood. Back to eyes that now would be worse than no sight at all. Back to squalor, back to crawling, back to ignorance.<br /><br />"Perhaps some day," he said, muttering to himself.<br /><br />"We got a lot to do and a lot to see," said Towser. "We got a lot to learn. We'll find things --"<br /><br />Yes, they could find things. Civilizations, perhaps. Civilizations that would make the civilization of Man seem puny by comparison. Beauty and, more important, an understanding of that beauty. And a comradeship no one had ever known before -- that no man, no dog had ever known before.<br /><br />And life. The quickness of life after what seemed a drugged existence.<br /><br />"I can't go back," said Towser.<br /><br />"Nor I," said Fowler.<br /><br />"They would turn me back into a dog," said Towser.<br /><br />"And me," said Fowler, "back into a man."<br /><br />- Clifford Simak, DesertionAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com