Cryptozoic! by Brian Aldiss Read Free Book Online

through

the time-entropy barrier to him. He had already noticed that his shadow

woman was near him again; how did she feel about Ann? Ghost though she

was, she would have feelings, there in her stifling future. The whole of

space-time was becoming stuffed with human feelings. Briefly, he thought

again of Monet. The old boy was right to concentrate on water lilies;

they might overgrow their pond, but you never caught them swarming over

the bank and the nearby trees as well.

He recalled Borrow had been a painter, back in their youth. Borrow would

be a good man to talk to. Borrow was hard-hearted, but he could sometimes

make you laugh.

As he got up and strolled towards his friend's establishment, he saw that

Borrow had very much improved the amenities. There were three tents

instead of the pair there had been, and two of them were considerable in

size. One was a sort of general store-cum-trading post, one was a bar,

one was a cafe. Over them all, Borrow and his wife had hoisted a great

sign: THE AMNIOTE EGG.

Behind the tents, before them, amid them, were other collections of

buildings in strange styles of architecture, some of them also called

THE AMNIOTE EGG, all of them in various degrees of shadow, according to

their degrees of futurity. It had been the presence of these shadows,

so clearly omens of success, that had encouraged the Borrows to set up

business in the first place; they were flourishing on the paradox.

"Two amniote eggs and chips," Bush said, as he pushed his way into the cafe.

Ver was behind the counter. Her hair was greyer than Bush remembered

it; she would be about fifty. She smiled her old smile and came out

from behind the counter to shake Bush's hand. He noted that her hand

felt glassy; they had not mind-traveled back from the same year; the

same effect made her face greyer, shadier, than it really was. Even

her voice came muted, drained away by the slight time-barrier. He knew

that the food and drink, when he took it, would have the same "glassy"

quality and digest slowly.

They chaffed each other affectionately, and Bush said the old place was

clearly making Ver's fortune.

"Bet you don't even know what an amniote egg is," Ver said. Her parents

had christened her Verbena, but she preferred the contraction.

"It means big business to you, doesn't it?"

"We're keeping body and soul together. And you, Eddie? Your body looks

all right -- how's the soul doing?"

"Still getting trouble from it." He had known this woman well in the

days when he and Borrow were struggling painters, before mind-travel,

had even slept with her once or twice before Roger had become seriously

interested. It all seemed a long while ago -- about a hundred and

thirty million years ago, or ahead, whichever it was. Sometimes past

and future became confused and seemed to flow in opposite directions

to normal. "Don't seem to get as many signals from it as I used to,

but those that do come through are mainly bad."

"Can't they operate?"

"Doc says it's incurable." It was marvelous how he could talk so trivially

to her about such momentous things. "Talking of incurables, how's Roger?"

"He's okay. You'll find him out back. You doing any grouping nowadays,

Eddie?"

"Well -- I'm just in a sort of transition stage. I'm -- hell, no, Ver,

I'm absolutely lost at the moment." He might as well tell her an

approximation of the truth; she was the only woman who asked about his

work because she actually cared what he did.

"Lost periods are sometimes necessary. You're doing nothing?"

"Did a couple of paintings last time I was in 2090. Just to pass the time.

Structuring time, psychologists call it. There's a theory that man's

biggest problem is structuring time. All wars are merely part-solutions

to the problem."

"The Hundred Years War would rate as quite a success in that case."

"Yep. It puts all art, all music, all literature, into that same category.

All time-passers, Lear , 'The St. Matthew