The Seeds of Time
- Автор: Уиндем Джон Паркс Лукас Бейнон Харрис
- Язык: английский
- Год: Michael Joseph
- ISBN: 0-7181-0362-9
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Seeds of Time». Краткое содержание книги:
‘Yes,’ she admitted, ‘I know. I felt like that for my first two generations. You are so young, Terry.’ She sat looking at me wistfully, and a little sadly.
Why the change should suddenly have come over me then, I can’t say. Maybe it wasn’t that sudden, and had been working up awhile, but as I looked back at her I found myself seeing her quite differently, and a cold feeling came over me. For the first time I saw beyond her perfect form and young loveliness. Inside, she was old-old and wearied-old, too, far beyond my reach. She thought of me as a child, and had been treating me as one. The vigour of my true youth had amused her-perhaps she had found that it revived her own for a while. Now she was tired of it-and of me. I saw that in the moment I fell out of love with her, in that moment when her charm turned to experienced sophistication, and every gesture showed as something practised and known. I knew that the freshness I saw was nothing but a sham. I must have stared at her quite a while.
‘You don’t want me any more,’ I told her. ‘I’ve ceased to be amusing. You want Hymorell.’
‘Yes, Terry,’ she said, quietly.
For the next day or two I pondered over what to do. I had never liked that world. It was effete and decaying. And now what pleasantness there had been had vanished. I felt imprisoned, stifled, appalled at the prospect of spending several lifetimes in it. Now that a return to my former torments seemed improbable, the prospect here looked, in another way, little, if any better. For the first time I began to wonder whether finiteness wasn’t one of life’s more important qualities. I quailed miserably at the prospect of an existence that was almost eternal….
But my worry was not necessary. I am in no danger of indefinite existence. I went to sleep despondent in the great green building, and when I woke I was in this place. How Hymorell can have done it I don’t altogether understand. I guess he was equally tired of the game we’d been playing. I think he must have constructed a transference instrument of the ordinary type they use in that world of his. Then he must have used it in conjunction with the other to effect a kind of triangular transference-possibly in two stages. Assuming that the other part of it worked as well as mine, Hymorell returned to his own body, and a feeble-minded patient from this institution was transferred to my chair. It succeeded in its purpose of separating me from the transfer instrument.
When I realized what had happened I wrote at once under the name I have here enquiring about Terry Molton whom I claimed as an acquaintance. I learned that he was dead. He had apparently electrocuted himself with some experimental radio apparatus. The resulting fuse had started a fire in the room, but it had been discovered and put out before it could spread further. The time of its discovery was some three hours after I had woken to find myself in this place. My position here is difficult. If I pretend to be Stephen Dallboy I am a moron committed for care; if I claim to be Terry Molton I am thought to have hallucinations. I see little chance that I shall be able to reclaim my rightful property, but I think I shall be able to show myself sufficiently normal to be released.
On balance that would not be too bad. I do at least have all the parts of a passable body now. And I reckon I ought to be able to use them profitably here in the kind of world where I do understand something of what’s going on. So I gain more than I lose.
Nevertheless, I am Terry Molton.
… It is, as you will realize, a well-integrated hallucination, but if there is nothing more serious we shall undoubtedly release the patient experimentally in due course. However, we do feel that we should acquaint you with one or two discrepant points. One is that, although the two men appear never to have met, Stephen Dallboy is informed in remarkably intimate detail of Terence Molton’s affairs. Another is that when confronted for test purposes with two friends of Molton s he immediately addressed them by name and seemed to know all about them-to their great astonishment, for they protest that in no way whatever-save, perhaps, in manner of speech -does he in the least resemble Terence Molton.
You will find herewith full legal proof that the patient is indeed Stephen Dallboy. Should there be any further developments we will keep you advised.
Yours truly,
Jesse K. Johnson
(Medical Director)
Dumb Martian
WHEN Duncan Weaver bought Lellie for-no, there could be trouble putting it that way-when Duncan Weaver paid Lellie’s parents one thousand pounds in cornpensation for the loss of her services, he had a figure of six, or, if absolutely necessary, seven hundred in mind. Everybody in Port Clarke that he had asked about it assured him that that would be a fair price. But when he got up country it hadn’t turned out quite as simple as the Port Clarkers seemed to think. The first three Martian families he had tackled hadn’t shown any disposition to sell their daughters at all; the next wanted Ł1,500, and wouldn’t budge; Lellie’s parents had started at Ł1,500, too, but they came down to Ł1,000 when he’d made it plain that he wasn’t going to stand for extortion. And when, on the way back to Port Clarke with her, he came to work it out, he found himself not so badly pleased with the deal after all. Over the five-year term of his appointment it could only cost him Ł200 a year at the worst-that is to say if he were not able to sell her for Ł400, maybe Ł500 when he got back. Looked at that way, it wasn’t really at all unreasonable.
In town once more, he went to explain the situation and get things all set with the Company’s Agent.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘you know the way I’m fixed with this five-year contract as Way-load Station Superintendent on Jupiter IV/II? Well, the ship that takes me there will be travelling light to pick up cargo. So how about a second passage on her?’ He had already taken the precautionary step of finding out that the Company was accustomed to grant an extra passage in such circumstances, though not of right.
The Company’s Agent was not surprised. After consulting some lists, he said that he saw no objection to an extra passenger. He explained that the Company was also prepared in such cases to supply the extra ration of food for one person at the nominal charge of Ł200 per annum, payable by deduction from salary.
‘What! A thousand pounds!’ Duncan exclaimed.
‘Well worth it,’ said the Agent. ‘It is nominal for the rations, because it’s worth the Company’s while to lay out the rest for something that helps to keep an employee from going nuts. That’s pretty easy to do when you’re fixed alone on a way-load station, they tell me-and I believe them. A thousand’s not high if it helps you to avoid a crack-up.’
Duncan argued it a bit, on principle, but the Agent had the thing cut and dried. It meant that Lellie’s price went up to Ł2,000-Ł400 a year. Still, with his own salary at Ł5,000 a year, tax free, unspendable during his term on Jupiter IV/II, and piling up nicely, it wouldn’t come to such a big slice. So he agreed.
‘Fine,’ said the Agent. ‘I’ll fix it, then. All you’ll need is an embarkation permit for her, and they’ll grant that automatically on production of your marriage certificate.’
Duncan stared.
‘Marriage certificate! What, me! Me marry a Mart!’
The Agent shook his head reprovingly.
‘No embarkation permit without it. Anti-slavery regulation. They’d likely think you meant to sell her-might even think you’d bought her.’
‘What, me!’ Duncan said again, indignantly.
‘Even you,’ said the Agent. ‘A marriage licence will only cost you another ten pounds-unless you’ve got a wife back home, in which case it’ll likely cost you a bit more later on.’ Duncan shook his head.
‘I’ve no wife,’ he assured him.