Last and First Men (Sci-Fi Novel). Olaf Stapledon

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СКАЧАТЬ became increasingly earnest and dictatorial, the other increasingly careless and ironical. Finally the American raised his voice and presented an ultimatum. ‘Our treaty of world-union,’ he said, ‘will remain unsigned unless you add a clause promising drastic reforms, which, as a matter of fact, my colleagues had already proposed as a condition of cooperation. I had decided to withhold them, in case they should wreck our treaty; but now I see they are essential. You must educate your people out of their lascivious and idle ways, and give them modern scientific religion. Teachers in your schools and universities must pledge themselves to the modern fundamentalized physics, and behaviourism, and must enforce worship of the Divine Mover. The change will be difficult, but we will help you. You will need a strong order of Inquisitors, responsible to the Directorate. They will see also to the reform of your people’s sexual frivolity in which you squander so much of the Divine Energy. Unless you agree to this, I cannot stop the war. The law of God must be kept, and those who know it must enforce it.’

      The woman interrupted him. ‘Tell me, what is this “God” of yours? The Europeans worshipped love, not energy. What do you mean by energy? Is it merely to make engines go fast, and to agitate the ether?’

      He answered flatly, as if repeating a lesson, ‘God is the all-pervading spirit of movement which seeks to actualize itself wherever it is latent. God has appointed the great American people to mechanize the universe.’ He paused, contemplating the clean lines of his sea-plane. Then he continued with emphasis, ‘But come! Time is precious. Either you work for God, or we trample you out of God’s way.’

      The woman approached him, saying, ‘There is certainly something great in this enthusiasm. But somehow, though my heart says you are right, my head is doubting still. There must be a mistake somewhere.’

      ‘Mistake!’ he laughed, overhanging her with his mask of power. ‘When a man’s soul is action, how can he be mistaken that action is divine? I have served the great God, Energy, all my life, from garage boy to World President. Has not the whole American people proved its faith by its success?’

      With rapture, but still in perplexity, she gazed at him. ‘There’s something terribly wrong-headed about you Americans,’ she said, ‘but certainly you are great.’ She looked him in the eyes. Then suddenly she laid a hand on him, and said with conviction, ‘Being what you are, you are probably right. Anyhow you are a man, a real man. Take me. Be the father of my boy. Take me to the dangerous cities of America to work with you.’

      The President was surprised with sudden hunger for her body, and she saw it; but he turned to the Vice-President and said, ‘She has seen where the truth lies. And you? War, or cooperation in God’s work?’

      ‘The death of our bodies, or the death of our minds,’ said the Chinese, but with a bitterness that lacked conviction; for he was no fanatic. ‘Well, since the soul is only the harmoniousness of the body’s behaviour, and since, in spite of this little dispute, we are agreed that the coordination of activity is the chief need of the planet today, and since in respect of our differences of temperament this lady has judged in favour of America, and moreover since, if there is any virtue in our Asian way of life, it will not succumb to a little propaganda, but rather will be strengthened by opposition—since all these matters are so, I accept your terms. But it would be undignified in China to let this great change be imposed upon her externally. You must give me time to form in Asia a native and spontaneous party of Energists, who will themselves propagate your gospel, and perhaps give it an elegance which, if I may say so, it has not yet. Even this we will do to secure the cosmopolitan control of Antarctica.’

      Thereupon the treaty was signed; but a new and secret codicil was drawn up and signed also, and both were witnessed by the Daughter of Man, in a clear, round, old-fashioned script.

      Then, taking a hand of each, she said, ‘And so at last the world is united. For how long, I wonder. I seem to hear my old master’s voice scolding, as though I had been rather stupid. But he failed me, and I have chosen a new master, Master of the World.’

      She released the hand of the Asian, and made as if to draw the American away with her. And he, though he was a strict monogamist with a better half waiting for him in New York, longed to crush her sun-clad body to his Puritan cloth. She drew him away among the palm trees.

      The Vice-President of the World sat down once more, lit a cigarette, and meditated, smiling.

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