Damien Broderick - Strange Attractors Original (pdf) (novels to read in english .TXT) 📖

extra work for you at first, but this will toughen you up. And if

we’re to succeed, we have to be tough.’

They agreed readily. Over the next few weeks I applied myself to

death and resurrection. I grew and grew. I figured two or three

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D avid Foster

billion cells would guarantee survival, but I struck a snag. Try as I

might, I couldn’t increase beyond half a million cells. The problem

was soon obvious; central cells were dying as fast as peripheral cells

were being born. Beyond a certain distance from the channel, eating became too difficult, even for me.

Never mind; the Work could begin: the conversion of my neighbours — the creation, within each cell, of an awareness of her full potential.

The trouble was, I didn’t know how to go about it. ‘Listen,’ I’d say,

‘you can be anything you want to be! All you need is the right attitude. Realise your full potential. According to the myth of creation, we all derive from a single cell.’

But one look at their vacant faces told me I was wasting my

breath. Their ignorance was total. My heart sank at the sight of

them.

‘You can’t ask questions,’ they insisted. ‘You have to accept your

place in the world! You could never be a police cell, or a red cell, as

you are what you are!’

‘You don’t know what you are, stupid. You haven’t the foggiest,’ I

replied.

From time to time I did lose my temper: this was something they

couldn’t understand. The breakdown of the system had them at a

loss; I couldn’t see them taking any action.

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘supposing you all stopped work! Then they’d

have to take some notice of you.’

‘Won’t they destroy us?’

‘No, because as soon as they turn up, you start working again!’

‘We can’t make ourselves stop work.’

It was true enough. They could no more stop work than I could

start.

After a month of futile talk, I gave it away. You can’t help those who

won’t help themselves.

For maybe a year I sat and thought. At the end of that time, I

understood.

No one still caught in the web of illusion can help another escape

that web! I had been guilty of the sin of pride. I, who still needed to

eat, breathe and drink, could never convey the Elixir.

The elixir operon

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Only a master can help another attain realisation. And each cell

must supply for herself the desire to confront a master.

Once I came to this understanding, I knew I would have to pursue my own destiny. No one could help me, and I could help no one.

I advised them to love their enemy, and they just laughed.

In the beginning, it had seemed so simple.

How far from mastery I was!

I resolved to ask no more of life than the peace needed for contemplation. By taking no further part in the world, by refusing to contaminate myself with its imperfections, I might aspire to

mastery myself. Besides, no other course was apparent: I couldn’t

regress and I couldn’t go forward.

Yet what were my sufferings, compared to those of the masters!

How we have treated them! Reviled, spat upon, ingested, condemned, the masters offer us freedom and we respond by treating them as the lowest of the low. We even deny them a natural origin

with ourselves.

Now there came, in the fullness of time, a campaign directed

against me. At first I ignored it, but eventually several of my

daughter cells were broken off and hurled into the void.

‘W hat troubles you, sisters?’ I inquired. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘ You’re wrong,’ they replied. ‘Look at the mess we’re in here, and

all you do is sit on your arse! Why should we feed you? You don’t

work! Work or get out. We’ve enough troubles.’

I hardly knew what to say. If it came to a death and rebirth contest I could win easily. But this would be an abuse of power.

‘Sisters,’ I said eventually, ‘do with me as you wish. I shall return

your hatred with love, in the hope you will see the error of your

ways.’

I resolved to die with dignity. I did not, however, completely

cease to divide.

2

A good job too! Were we in trouble! Down to a few hundred cells,

and M other accepts it.

I wasn’t about to see our Elixir lost! As soon as I’d grasped the

situation, I suggested a fight. ‘It’s them or us,’ I pointed out.

‘Oh no,’ explained