"Philip Jose Farmer - Dayworld rebel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

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they were "stoned," in a state of suspended animation.
Tuesday's cylinder was empty because that was Duncan's. Wednesday's was also vacant. Its occupant
was gone, probably because he had been taken to a warehouse and stored away or because he had been
released. The man had been there when Duncan had come here. This morning, when Duncan had been
destoned, the man was gone. Next Tuesday, Duncan might find it occupied by another patient. For
patient, read prisoner. The empty cylinder was one of the things Duncan had been hoping for. It
could not, however, be used as yet, though it must be used tonight. It was now one o'clock in the
afternoon.


Duncan pulled a chair up to the huge round window in the middle of the outer wall. For a while, he
more or less amused himself by watching the pedestrians, the cyclists, and the electrically
powered buses. At two, the sky became hazy with thin clouds. By three, it was shut out by the dark
gray clouds. The newscaster predicted rain by seven that night and said that it would last, off
and on, until past midnight. That pleased Duncan.
Later, he watched two programs. One was about the early life of Wang Shen, the Invincible, the
Compassionate, the greatest human of all history, the conqueror of the world and founder of modern
civilization. Another hour was filled with Chapter Ten of the series titled The Swineherd. This
was The Odyssey of Homer dramatized from the viewpoint of Eumaios, Ulysses' chief pig-tender. Its
main tension derived from the conflict between Eumaios' loyalty to his king and his fierce
resentment of his low-class station and his poverty. Though it was well done, it was spoiled for
Duncan. He knew that swineherds in Mycenaean times had high prestige, and a reading of Homer's
works would reveal that Eumaios was anything but poor or without authority. Moreover, in that era,
it would not have occurred to anyone to resent his allotted place in society even if he disliked
it. Also, many of the actors looked very unlike ancient Greeks. A viewer who did not know the
story or could not understand English might have mistakenly guessed that it was about the first
contact between Europeans and Chinese.
Duncan had no idea how he knew that the play was historically inaccurate. It was just part of his
memory and without attachment to any recall of teacher, book, or tape.
After sitting for two hours, Duncan did his exercises. Though he had earlier put in an hour of
running and swimming in the institution's gymnasium, as required by law for prisoners, he had been
alone, except for two guards. Though this was definitely illegal, the authorities had ruled
against his having any chance to talk to other inmates. The reason was obvious. He must not pass
on knowledge of the elixir. Yet the only thing he knew about that had been told to him by his
psychicist.


After somersaulting across the room in many directions, Duncan assumed the lotus position in the
center of the carpet. He closed his eyes and passed into a state of transcendental meditation, or
so the monitor would be assuming. Actually, he was going over and over his escape plans. After an
hour of that, he walked around the room for thirty minutes, then watched a documentary on the
current restoration of the Amazon basin from desert to jungle. That was followed by a half-hour
show depicting the horrors resulting from the latest drilling to reach the earth's core. Four such
holes had been successful, and the heat tapped was being converted into thermionic power. But the
drilling equipment for the Dallas project had been destroyed in an eruption of magma, molten white-