"Philip Jose Farmer - The Sliced Crosswise Only on Tuesday W" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

would come out of stonerment.
"That'll be the day!" Mabel said. She squirmed on his lap.
"Oh, I think they'll crack it," he said. "They're already on the track; they've
succeeded in stopping the aging of rabbits."
"I don't mean that," she said. "Sure, they'll find out how to rejuvenate people. But
then what? You think they're going to bring them all back? With all the people they
got now and then they'll double, maybe triple, maybe quadruple, the population? You
think they won't just leave them standing there?" She giggled, and said, "What would
the pigeons do without them?"
He squeezed her waist. At the same time, he had a vision of himself squeezing that
girl's waist. Hers would be soft enough but with no hint of fat.
Forget about her. Think of now. Watch the news.
A Mrs. Wilder had stabbed her husband and then herself with a kitchen knife. Both
had been stonered immediately after the police arrived, and they had been taken to the
hospital. An investigation of a work slowdown in the county government offices was
taking place. The complaints were that Monday's people were not setting up the
computers for Tuesday's. The case was being referred to the proper authorities of both
days. The Ganymede base reported that the Great Red Spot of Jupiter was emitting
weak but definite pulses that did not seem to be random.
The last five minutes of the program was a precis devoted to outstanding events of
the other days. Mrs. Cuthmar, the housemother, turned the channel to a situation
comedy with no protests from anybody.
Tom left the room, after telling Mabel that he was going to bed early-alone, and to
sleep. He had a hard day tomorrow.
He tiptoed down the hall and the stairs and into the stoner room. The lights were
soft, there were many shadows, and it was quiet. The sixty-three cylinders were like
ancient granite columns of an underground chamber of a buried city. Fifty-five faces
were white blurs behind the clear metal. Some had their eyes open; most had closed
them while waiting for the field radiated from the machine in the base. He looked
through Jennie Marlowe's door. He felt sick again. Out of his reach; never for him.
Wednesday was only a day away. No, it was only a little less than four and a half
hours away.
He touched the door. It was slick and only a little cold. She stared at him. Her right
forearm was bent to hold the strap of a large purse. When the door opened, she would
step out, ready to go. Some people took their showers and fixed their faces as soon as
they got up from their sleep and then went directly into the stoner. When the field was
automatically radiated at 05:00, they stepped out a minute later, ready for the day.
He would like to step out of his "coffin," too, at the same time.
But he was barred by Wednesday.
He turned away. He was acting like a sixteen-year-old kid. He had been sixteen
about one hundred and six years ago, not that that made any difference.
Physiologically, he was thirty.
As he started up to the second floor, he almost turned around and went back for
another look. But he took himself by his neck-collar and pulled himself up to his
room. There he decided he would get to sleep at once. Perhaps he would dream about
her. If dreams were wish-fulfillments, they would bring her to him. It still had not
been "proved" that dreams always expressed wishes, but it had been proved that man
deprived of dreaming did go mad. And so the somniums radiated a field that put man
into a state in which he got all the sleep, and all the dreams, that he needed within a
four-hour period. Then he was awakened and a little later went into the stoner where