The Greatest SF Classics of Stanley G. Weinbaum. Stanley G. WeinbaumЧитать онлайн книгу.
care what talk you make of her, because she burns on while you—and those you talk to—in so very few years will be dust! Dust!"
Again he laughed at her and the Flame turned suddenly away.
"I suppose you may go now," she said dully.
But Connor hardly heard her. He was caught in speculations concerning the strange black and golden soul of the Princess, baffling, hateful, fascinating to the point of deadliness, and yet—somehow wistful, almost pitiful. It was almost, he thought, as if in the glimpse he had caught of her in the freedom of the woods he had seen the true soul of the woman, and all the rest was masquerading.
He stared across at the glory of her face, now subdued to sadness as she gazed out at a million lighted windows. Then a flicker of motion caught his eye, far, far beneath him in the well of shadows in the Inner Gardens.
"Someone's in the Gardens," he observed absently.
"Oh," said the Princess listlessly, "it must be an Antarctic Immortal, enjoying a garden under the sky." She clicked the vision screen. "Garden," she ordered dully. "North bank of the pool."
A burst of choked laughter startled him. He swung about. There, shown on the screen before his eyes, was Evanie, seated on a garden bench, her head on the shoulder of Jan Orm, his arm about her waist!
"A waiter!" the Black Flame said scornfully. "A Palace waiter!"
But despite her laughter and his own confusion, Connor did not fail to notice that there were still tears in her eyes.
The Dinner at the Sleeper's
Connor awoke late next morning, and to an instant memory of the shock he had experienced at the sight of Evanie and Jan Orm. Most of the night he had spent in improvising possible excuses for the girl. Perhaps it was an innocent scene he had witnessed.
After all, she and Jan were lifelong friends, born and raised in Ormon and it might be that Evanie had turned to him in loneliness, even in pique at his, Tom Connor's own involuntary attendance on Margaret of Urbs. But the mocking suggestions of the Princess, and the memory of Evanie's contented face in the vision screen—those troubled him. And he remembered, too, Jan's confession that he loved Evanie.
Dressing, he glimpsed her far below in the Inner Gardens, with her bronze hair glinting. She was lying at full length on the grass. He forgot breakfast and hurried into the corridor, where the guard, remembering the medallion of the Princess, merely saluted respectfully, unaware that Connor no longer possessed the disc of gold.
He descended at once to the ground level, followed an interminable passage toward the Palace's center, and flung open a door at its end. Instead of daylight, a dim–lit chamber with glowing walls lay beyond, wherein, after a moment of blinking, he descried a row of perhaps twenty men. Some stared at him, surprised, but most kept their eyes fixed steadily on the shining wall.
"I'm sorry," he said to the nearest man. "I was looking for the Gardens."
Unexpectedly, a voice spoke beside him.
"The Gardens are two stories above us, Thomas. And I see you still wander."
It was the tall, ebony–haired Master. Beside him was another Immortal, grave–eyed and sandy–haired.
"This is Thomas Connor," said the Master, "our store–house of ancient knowledge. Thomas, this is Martin Sair, here from Austropolis." He added, "Thomas is one of those who affect not to kneel in our presence. I indulge him."
"Indulgence is a habit of yours, Urbanus," rumbled the sandy–haired man. "Does the Princess also—indulge?"
"Not willingly. Margaret is having one of her restless years, I'm afraid." He frowned. "But they pass—they pass. Look there, Thomas." He gestured toward the wall. "This is our seeing room. Here is focused every scanner in Urbs—in any of my cities, if I wish. If the Palace is the world's brain, this room is the visual center."
Connor took his eyes from a fascinated scrutiny of the legendary Martin Sair, the Giver of Life, and glanced at the walls. Millions of tiny pictures covered them, each small as a thumbnail, glowing some in colors, and some, when the distant origin was in darkness, in the dull blue–gray of the short waves. He saw flickers of movement as the pictured men and women went about their daily business.
"We can enlarge any scene there," said the Master, pointing at a row of wider screens, some even now illumined. "In this room I can follow a man's life from birth to death, so long as he remains in one of my cities." He paused musingly, then shrugged. "The Gardens are two floors above us, Thomas."
It was dismissal. Connor cast a last glance at Martin Sair, feeling as if he were gazing on a demigod. Martin Sair, the Giver of Life, greatest except the Master among all the heroic figures in the dazzling age of the Enlightenment. Then he backed away from the great Immortal and betook himself to the Gardens.
Evanie was there, lovely as a bit of the ancient statuary that dotted the square, as she lay in the barbaric costume of Urbs watching a twenty–inch column of water slip smoothly from the mouth of a giant stone lion. She gave Connor a cool glance as he approached.
"Evanie!" he said unhappily. "I've looked everywhere for you."
"Why?" she asked indifferently.
"To be with you, of course. You know that."
"I don't know it. Or has the Flame burned you at last?
Her coolness baffled him.
"Evanie," he pleaded, "why are you so offended?"
Her mouth hardened. "You've deserted the Weeds, Tom. Do you think I could ever forgive that?"
"See here, Evanie," he said hastily. "There's one thing you seem to have forgotten. I was thrust in among the Weeds of Ormon without choice. Does that mean I have to accept your social theories blindly? Perhaps I'm too primitive for anarchy—but I think you are too!" He went on defiantly. "I don't think your theories will work, and I do think the Master's government is what this world needs. It isn't perfect, but it's better than the Weeds offer—and even for you, Evanie, I won't give up freedom of thought."
"You mean you won't think!" she blazed. "You're not fooling me, Tom! I know the way the Black Flame poisons men, and you've been with her too often! You've been burned and—" Her anger mounted. "Oh, go away!"
"Evanie," he began earnestly, and paused. Was he untouched by the devastating charm of the Princess? The dizzying warmth of her lips, his reeling brain in the hour on the Pacific— "She's the daughter of Hell!" he muttered.
"Go away!" flared Evanie. "Quitter!"
Hot words rose to his lips. But he suppressed his anger, even as the picture he had seen of Jan and Evanie flashed on his mental screen, and turned away into the Palace.
For an hour he stamped through the endless halls now crowded with arriving Immortals from Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and South America. Now and again one turned cool eyes on his forbidding countenance or smiled gravely after him. None stopped or addressed him.
He must have completed the somewhat less than a mile of circuit several times when a guard approached him. He turned a furious scowl on the fellow, but he had only a tiny black envelope inscribed in white in the precisescript of the Princess. Connor ripped the missive open. A short note was inside. It read:
Come to my chambers at half after the seventh hour to escort me to dinner. Wear the black costume in your quarters, and the black cape.
Margaret of Urbs.
Merely an invitation—but a royal invitation is a command. He laughed bitterly. Why not? The Black Flame could burn no more painfully than she had already, and at least he could vent his anger on her.
Although hours remained before the appointed dinner hour, he went back to his quarters, glancing