"Phillip Francis Nowlan - Buck Rogers 01 - Armageddon 2419" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nowlan Philip Francis)

 soon as you make up your mind to anything, let me know."
We all shook hands, for that was one custom that had not died out in five hundred years, and I set out
with Hearn.
Bill, like all the others, was clad in green. He was a big man., That is, he was about my own height, five
feet eleven. This was considerably above the average now, for the race had lost something in stature, it
seemed, through the vicissitudes of five centuries. Most of the women were a bit below five feet, and the
men only a trifle above this height.
For a period of two weeks Bill was to confine himself to camp duties, so I had a good chance to
familiarize myself with the community life. It was not easy. There were so many marvels to absorb. I
never ceased to wonder at the strange combination of rustic social life and feverish industrial activity. At
least, it was strange to me. For in my experience, industrial development meant crowded cities,
tenements, paved streets, profusion of vehicles, noise, hurrying men and women with strained or dull
faces, vast structures and ornate public works.
Here, however, was rustic simplicity, apparently isolated families and groups, living in the heart of the
forest, with a quarter of a mile or more between households. There was a total absence of crowds, no
means of conveyance other than the. belts called jumpers, almost constantly worn by everybody, and
an occasional rocket ship-used only for longer journeys-and underground plants or factories that were
to my mind more like laboratories and engine rooms. Many of them were excavations as deep as
mines, with well furnished, lighted and comfortable interiors. These people were adept at camonfiage
against air observation. Not only would their activity have been unsuspected by an airship passing over
the center of the community, but even by an enemy who might happen to drop through the screen of the
upper
branches to the floor of the forest. The camps, or household structures, were all irregular in shape and of
colors that blended with the great trees among which they were hidden.
There were 724 dwellings or camps among the Wyomings, located within an area of about fifteen square
miles. The total population was 8,688, every man, woman and child, whether member or "exchange,"
being listed. The plants were widely scattered through the territory also. Nowhere was anything like
congestion permitted. So far as possible, families and individuals were assigned to living quarters, not too
far from the plants or offices in which their work lay.
All able-bodied men and women alternated in two week periods between military and industrial
service, except those who were needed for household work Since working conditions in the plants
and offices were ideal, and everybody thus had plenty of healthy outdoor activity in addition, the
population was sturdy and activive. Laziness was regarded as nearly the greatest of social offences.
Hard work and general merit were variously rewarded with extra privileges, advancement to positions of
authority, and with various items of personal equipment for convenience and luxury.
In leisure moments, I got great enjoyment from sitting outside the dwelling in which I was quartered
with Bill Hearn and ten other men, watching the occasional passers-by, as with leisurely, but swift
movements, they swung up and down the forest trail, rising from the ground in long almost-horizontal
leaps, occasionally swinging from one convenient branch over head to another ~ "sliding" back to the
ground farther on: Normal: traveling pace, where these trails were straight enough, was about twenty
miles an hour. Such things as automobiles and railroad trains (the memory of them not more than a
month old in my mind) seemed inexpressibly silly and futile compared with such convenience as these
belts or jumpers offered.
Bill suggested that I wander around for several days, from plant to plant, to observe and study what I
could. The entire community had been apprised of my coming, my rating as an "exchange" reaching every
building and post in the community, by means of ultronic broadcast Everywhere I was welcomed in an
interested and helpful spirit.
I visited the plants where ultronic vibrations were isolated from the ether and through slow processes
built up into subelectronic, electronic and atomic forms into the two great synthetic elements, ultron
and inertron. I learned something, superficially at least, of the processes of combined chemical and