S is for Space. Ray Bradbury

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СКАЧАТЬ the answer to the problem ‘What happens next for man, where do we go from here?’ We’re faced with the blank wall of the universe and the fatality of living in that universe, and man as he is today is not prepared to go against the universe. The least exertion tires man, overwork kills his heart, disease his body. Maybe Smith will be prepared to answer the philosophers’ problem of life’s purpose. Maybe he can give it new purpose.

      “Why, we’re just petty insects, all of us, fighting on a pinhead planet. Man isn’t meant to remain here and be sick and small and weak, but he hasn’t discovered the secret of the greater knowledge yet.

      “But—change man. Build your perfect man. Your—your superman, if you like. Eliminate petty mentality, give him complete physiological, neurological, psychological control of himself: give him clear, incisive channels of thought, give him an indefatigable blood stream, a body that can go months without outside food, that can adjust to any climate anywhere and kill any disease. Release man from the shackles of flesh and flesh misery and then he’s no longer a poor, petty little man afraid to dream because he knows his frail body stands between him and the fulfillment of dreams, then he’s ready to wage war, the only war worth waging—the conflict of man reborn and the whole confounded universe!”

      Breathless, voice hoarse, heart pounding, Rockwell tensed over Smith, placed his hands admiringly, firmly on the cold length of the chrysalis and shut his eyes. The power and drive and belief in Smith surged through him. He was right. He was right. He knew he was right. He opened his eyes and looked at McGuire and Hartley who were mere shadows in the dim shielded light of the room.

      After a silence of several seconds, Hartley snuffed out his cigarette. “I don’t believe that theory.”

      McGuire said, “How do you know Smith’s not just a mess of jelly inside? Did you X-ray him?”

      “I couldn’t risk it, it might interfere with his change, like the sunlight did.”

      “So he’s going to be a superman? What will he look like?”

      “We’ll wait and see.”

      “Do you think he can hear us talking about him now?”

      “Whether or not he can, there’s one thing certain—we’re sharing a secret we weren’t intended to know. Smith didn’t plan on myself and McGuire entering the case. He had to make the most of it. But a superman doesn’t like people to know about him. Humans have a nasty way of being envious, jealous, and hateful. Smith knew he wouldn’t be safe if found out. Maybe that explains your hatred, too, Hartley.”

      They all remained silent, listening. Nothing sounded. Rockwell’s blood whispered in his temples, that was all. There was Smith, no longer Smith, a container labeled SMITH, its contents unknown.

      “If what you say is true,” said Hartley, “then indeed we should destroy him. Think of the power over the world he would have. And if it affects his brain as I think it will affect it—he’ll try to kill us when he escapes because we are the only ones who know about him. He’ll hate us for prying.”

      Rockwell said it easily. “I’m not afraid.”

      Hartley remained silent. His breathing was harsh and loud in the room.

      Rockwell came around the table, gesturing.

      “I think we’d better say good-night now, don’t you?”

      The thin rain swallowed Hartley’s car. Rockwell closed the door, instructed McGuire to sleep downstairs tonight on a cot fronting Smith’s room, and then he walked upstairs to bed.

      Undressing, he had time to conjure over all the unbelievable events of the passing weeks. A superman. Why not? Efficiency, strength—

      He slipped into bed.

      When. When does Smith emerge from his chrysalis? When?

      The rain drizzled quietly on the roof of the sanitarium.

      McGuire lay in the middle of the sound of rain and the earthquaking of thunder, slumbering on the cot, breathing heavy breaths. Somewhere, a door creaked, but McGuire breathed on. Wind gusted down the hall. McGuire grunted and rolled over. A door closed softly and the wind ceased.

      Footsteps tread softly on the deep carpeting. Slow footsteps, aware and alert and ready. Footsteps. McGuire blinked his eyes and opened them.

      In the dim light a figure stood over him.

      Upstairs, a single light in the hall thrust down a yellow shaft near McGuire’s cot.

      An odor of crushed insect filled the air. A hand moved. A voice started to speak.

      McGuire screamed.

      Because the hand that moved into the light was green.

      Green.

      “Smith!”

      McGuire flung himself ponderously down the hall, yelling.

      “He’s walking! He can’t walk, but he’s walking!”

      The door rammed open under McGuire’s bulk. Wind and rain shrieked in around him and he was gone into the storm, babbling.

      In the hall, the figure was motionless. Upstairs a door opened swiftly and Rockwell ran down the steps. The green hand moved back out of the light behind the figure’s back.

      “Who is it?” Rockwell paused halfway.

      The figure stepped into the light.

      Rockwell’s eyes narrowed.

      “Hartley! What are you doing back here?”

      “Something happened,” said Hartley. “You’d better get McGuire. He ran out in the rain babbling like a fool.”

      Rockwell kept his thoughts to himself. He searched Hartley swiftly with one glance and then ran down the hall and out into the cold wind.

      “McGuire! McGuire, come back you idiot!”

      The rain fell on Rockwell’s body as he ran. He found McGuire about a hundred yards from the sanitarium, blubbering,

      “Smith—Smith’s walking …”

      “Nonsense. Hartley came back, that’s all.”

      “I saw a green hand. It moved.”

      “You dreamed.”

      “No. No.” McGuire’s face was flabby pale, with water on it. “I saw a green hand, believe me. Why did Hartley come back? He—”

      At the mention of Hartley’s name, full comprehension came smashing to Rockwell. Fear leaped through his mind, a mad blur of warning, a jagged edge of silent screaming for help.

      “Hartley!”

      Shoving McGuire abruptly aside, Rockwell twisted and leaped back toward the sanitarium, shouting. Into the hall, down the hall—

      Smith’s door was broken open.

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