It turned in mid-air and swooped out of the cave, and then perched on a rock, just beneath an overhang, out of the rain, which was getting heavier again.
`Come on,’ it said, `watch this.’
Random didn’t like being bossed around by a bird, but she followed it to the mouth of the cave anyway, still fingering the rock in her pocket.
`Rain,’ said the bird. `You see? Just rain.’
`I know what rain is.’
Sheets of the stuff were sweeping through the night, moonlight sifting through it.
`So what is it?’
`What do you mean, what is it? Look, who are you? What were you doing in that box? Why have I spent a night running through the forest fending off demented squirrels to find that all I’ve got at the end of it is a bird asking me what rain is. It’s just water falling through the bloody air, that’s what it is. Anything else you want to know or can we go home now?’
There was a long pause before the bird answered, `You want to go home?’
`I haven’t got a home!’ Random almost shocked herself, she screamed the words so loudly.
`Look into the rain…’ said the bird Guide.
`I’m looking into the rain! What else is there to look at?’
`What do you see?’
`What do you mean, you stupid bird? I just see a load of rain. It’s just water, falling.’
`What shapes do you see in the water?’
`Shapes? There aren’t any shapes. It’s just, just…’
`Just a mish mash,’ said the bird Guide.
`Yes…’
`Now what do you see?’
Just on the very edge of visibility a thin faint beam fanned out of the bird’s eyes. In the dry air beneath the overhang there was nothing to see. Where the beam hit the drops of rain as they fell through it, there was a flat sheet of light, so bright and vivid it seemed solid.
`Oh great. A laser show,’ said Random fractiously. `Never seen one of those before, of course, except at about five million rock concerts.’
`Tell me what you see!’
`Just a flat sheet! Stupid bird.’
`There’s nothing there that wasn’t there before. I’m just using light to draw your attention to certain drops at certain moments. Now what do you see?’
The light shut off.
`Nothing.’
`I’m doing exactly the same thing, but with ultra-violet light. You can’t see it.’
`So what’s the point of showing me something I can’t see?’
`So that you understand that just because you see something, it doesn’t mean to say it’s there. And if you don’t see something it doesn’t mean to say it’s not there, it’s only what your senses bring to your attention.’
`I’m bored with this,’ said Random, and then gasped.
Hanging in the rain was a giant and very vivid three-dimen- sional image of her father looking startled about something.
About two miles away behind Random, her father, struggling his way through the woods suddenly stopped. He was startled to see an image of himself looking startled about something hanging brightly in the rain-filled air about two miles away. About two miles away some distance to the right of the direction in which he was heading.
He was almost completely lost, convinced he was going to die of cold and wet and exhaustion and beginning to wish he could just get on with it. He had just been brought an entire golfing magazine by a squirrel, as well, and his brain. was beginning to howl and gibber.
Seeing a huge bright image of himself light up in the sky told him that, on balance, he was probably right to howl and gibber but probably wrong as far as the direction he was heading was concerned.
Taking a deep breath, he turned and headed off towards the inexplicable light show.
`OK, so what’s that supposed to prove?’ demanded Random. It was the fact that the image was her father that had startled her rather than the appearance of the image itself. She had seen her first hologram when she was two months old and had been put in it to play. She had seen her most recent one about half an hour ago playing the March of the AnjaQantine Star Guard.