【英文读物】E Being

【英文读物】E Beingchapter 1 First man to reach the speed of light, I was. But youll find the good Albert only hinted at the effects, in a delta-theta 2.3 pi-squared way. E=mc2, he said. And for fifty years before they built my rocket, the Lighttrick, slim, tapering, sleek and gy-perpowered, everyone concentrated on turning matter into energy at a light-squared power. Big, bright bangs, and congratulations.Its a pity no one asked what happens to energy divided by the speed of light. I happen to be the answer to the equation, and by interfering with the motor of this electric typescripter I can give you my thoughts on the matter.The Lighttrick hit full velocity out there between Van Allen and the asteroids. Id guess the whole beautiful ship, including me, converted into energy and, slowing down, reconverted on the wrong side, so to speak. And there I was, floating without a ship and surrounded by little round beings, shimmering in a blue haze."Good afternoon," I said.But no sound came out of my mouth. I had a mouth, in a way, but not for talking; and not at all the sort of mouth I used to have. In fact, the shimmering blue haze was me. I could find no other parts of me. And when the little round things touched me on the periphery, there was an intelligent vibration."Frequency and tone?" said the vibration. "Please identify.""You must take me as you find me," I thought."Unidentified frequencies and discordant tones requested not to wander in spaceways," vibrated the little round things."Im a man," I vibrated back. "We dont have frequencies. We use frequencies in radio, television, radar and so on.""Not intelligible.""Wheres my ship?""Ship?"I tried to picture the Lighttrick and the long thin gleam on her hull, the fury of her rockets and the calm ordered keyboard of the control panels."Most interesting," vibrated the round things. "Poetic. Very creative. Speculative philosopher, yes?"They seemed to be grasping the general idea, so I concentrated on an image of myself, square and bearded, staring sternly into space through the ports, in a pioneer manner, observing hitherto unknown planets."Most ingenious," my audience vibrated back. "But unlikely."Then they started vibrating among themselves."Senior e minus says.""Mush is mush, thats what I say.""Now, theoretically.""I dont vibrate why not. There are more things in positive and negative, Horatio, than.""Excuse me," I vibrated.There was a brief pause."Perhaps we should illuminate.""Please do," I vibrated politely.They gathered round the edges of my haze and explained. It seemed a very senior e had suggested once that there might, just might, theoretically be side-effects of mush. The little round things were e beings. And "mush" was the accepted term for the static and orbital tracks of electrons in fixed patterns, such as one found here and there in space. But the very senior e, apparently, had speculated that in a certain narrow band of light frequencies mush might possibly give an appearance of "matter"to coin a worda kind of condensed or crystalline energy."But no one," they vibrated, "ever suggested there might be forms of life based on such material structures. We admire your imagination. Hail bright e! All hail."A rapid circuit of my haze failed to show anyone else that they might be vibrating to."Do you mean me?" I inquired."Naturally. Hail, bright e!""Im an e?""What else?""Very well," I thought. "Perhaps youll tell me what an e is.""An e? We are all e beings.""So you mentioned earlier. But what is an e being?""Ah, you are too deep for us. Highly original philosopher, yes. But please get off the spaceway. There is a food flood due."And they edged me firmly down, and down, to a vast doughnut with a hole in the center.I ate a piece out of habit. It was insipid and tasteless. But then, a doughnut several thousand miles across must have some drawbacks."The pasture is better inside," they vibrated.So I sank down into the enormous piece of pastry and came out of a couple of inner layers to see a big ball of mush. There was no mistaking it. A vast, tangled, interconnecting mass of tiny points of light. Mush was a good name for it. But here and there on its surface were great rivers of liquor and mounds of food in delectable variety.I stuffed myself for days, browsing here and there across the surface of the globe of mush.In fact, I was chewing quietly on an apparently endless streaming ribbon ofwelltrout, steak, caviar, you-name-your-favorite food; thats what it was to me. And I happened to bite too deeply. There was a core of this mush stuff inside and, when I bit it, the whole food supply stopped. The stream of entrancing food just disappeared.And there I was, hovering on a plain of bare mush.I was brooding on this and belching contentedly with a sort of cracking noise, when the skeleton came driving over the surface of the mush ball. It was in