The Black Flame (Dystopian Novel). Stanley G. Weinbaum

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СКАЧАТЬ "'L bea soon." He understood; she was saying, "Are you hungry, Tom? I'll be there soon."

      He answered with her own affirmative "Eah," and watched her place the meal in a miraculous cook stove that could be trusted to prepare it without burning.

      "Evanie," he began, "how long have I been here?"

      "Three months," said Evanie. "You were very sick."

      "But how long was I asleep?"

      "You ought to know," retorted Evanie. "I told you this was Eight forty– six."

      He frowned.

      "The year Eight forty–six of what?"

      "Just Eight forty–six," Evanie said matter of factly. "Of the Enlightenment, of, course. What year did you sleep?"

      "I told you—Nineteen thirty–eight," insisted Connor, perplexed. "Nineteen thirty–eight, A.D."

      "Oh," said Evanie, as if humoring a child.

      Then, "A.D.?" she repeated. "Anno Domini, that means. Year of the Master. But the Master is nowhere near nineteen hundred years old."

      Connor was nonplussed. He and Evanie seemed to be talking at cross– purposes. He calmly started again.

      "Listen to me," he said grimly. "Suppose you tell me exactly what you think I am—all about it, just as if I were a—oh, a Martian. In simple words."

      "I know what you are," said Evanie. "You're a Sleeper. Often they wake with muddled minds."

      "And what," he pursued doggedly, "is a Sleeper?"

      Surprisingly Evanie answered that, in a clear, understandable—but most astonishing—way. Almost as astonished herself that Connor should not know the answer to his question.

      "A Sleeper," she said simply, and Connor was now able to understand her peculiar clipped speech—the speech of all these people—with comparative ease, "is one of those who undertake electrolepsis. That is, have themselves put to sleep for a long term of years to make money."

      "How? By exhibiting themselves?"

      "No," she said. "I mean that those who want wealth badly enough, but won't spend years working for it, undertake the Sleep. You must remember that—if you have forgotten so much else. They put their money in the banks. organized for the Sleepers. You will remember. They guarantee six percent. You see, don't you? At that rate a Sleeper's money increases three hundred times a century—three hundred units for each one deposited. Six percent doubles their money every twelve years. A thousand becomes a fortune of three hundred thousand, if the Sleeper outlasts a century—and if he lives."

      "Fairy tales!" Connor said contemptuously, but now he understood her question about the whereabouts of his money, when he had first awakened. "What institution can guarantee six percent with safety? What could they invest in?"

      "They invest in one percent Urban bonds."

      "And run at a loss, I suppose!"

      "No. Their profits are enormous—from the funds of the nine out of every ten Sleepers who fail to waken!"

      "So I'm a Sleeper!" Connor said sharply. "Now tell me the truth."

      Evanie gazed anxiously down at him.

      "Electrolepsis often muddles one."

      "I'm not muddled!" he yelled. "I want truth, that's all. I want to know the date."

      "It's the middle of July, Eight hundred and forty–six," Evanie said patiently.

      "The devil it is! Perhaps I slept backward then! I want to know what happened to me."

      "Then suppose you tell," Evanie said gently.

      "I will!" he cried frantically. "I'm the Thomas Marshall Connor of the newspapers—or don't you read 'em? I'm the man who was tried for murder, and electrocuted. Tom Connor of St. Louis—St. Louis! Understand?"

      Evanie's gentle features went suddenly pale.

      "St. Louis!" she whispered. "St. Louis—the ancient name of Selui! Before the Dark Centuries—impossible!"

      "Not impossible—true," Connor said grimly. "Too painfully true."

      "Electrocution!" Evanie whispered awedly. "The Ancients' punishment!" She stared as if fascinated, then cried excitedly: "Could electrolepsis happen by accident? Could it? But no! A milliampere too much and the brain's destroyed; a millivolt too little and asepsis fails. Either way's death—but it has happened if what you are telling is the truth, Tom Connor! You must have experienced the impossible!"

      "And what is electrolepsis?" Connor asked, desperately calm.

      "It—it's the Sleep!" whispered the tense girl. "Electrical paralysis of the part of the brain before Rolando's Fissure. It's what the Sleepers use, but only for a century, or a very little more. This—this is fantastic! You have slept since before the Dark Centuries! Not less than a thousand years!"

      Forest Meeting

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      A week—the third since Connor's awakening to sane thought, had passed. He sat on a carved stone bench before Evanie's cottage and reveled in the burning canopy of stars and copper moon. He was living, if what he had been told was true—and he was forced to believe it now—after untold billions had passed into eternity.

      Evanie must have been right. He was convinced by her gentle insistence, by the queer English on every tongue, by a subtle difference in the very world about him. It wasn't the same world—quite.

      He sighed contentedly, breathing the cool night air. He had learned much of the new age from Evanie, though much was still mysteriously veiled. Evanie had spoken of the city of Urbs and the Master, but only vaguely. One day he asked her why.

      "Because"—she hesitated—"well, because it's best for you to form your own judgments. We—the people around here—are not fond of Urbs and the Immortals, and I would not like to influence you, Tom, for in all truth it's the partisans of the Master who have the best of it, not his enemies. Urbs is in power; it will probably remain in power long after our lifetimes, since it has ruled for seven centuries."

      Abruptly she withdrew something from her pocket and passed it to him. He bent over it—a golden disc, a coin. He made out the lettering "10 Units," and the figure of a snake circling a globe, its tail in its mouth.

      "The Midgard Serpent," said Evanie. "I don't know why, but that's what it's called."

      Connor reversed the coin. There was revealed the embossed portrait of a man's head, whose features, even in miniature, looked cold, austere, powerful. Connor read:

      "Orbis Terrarum Imperator Dominusque Urbis."

      "Emperor of the World and Master of the City," he translated.

      "Yes. That is the Master." Evanie's voice was СКАЧАТЬ