"Jack Vance - To Live Forever" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

ETERNAL LIFE . . тАв

In Jack Vance's exciting science-fiction novel, we enter a future world
in which eternal life is possible. Immortality is not given indiscriminately
to all mankind, but must be earned through a series of worthy achievements,
each of which brings as its reward an extension of the life span. The road to
immortality is a hard one, and one false step may mean a visit from the
Assassins.

The central figure in Vance's absorbing speculation is John Warlock, an
Immortal who has committed the unforgivable crime of murder. A carnival
barkerтАФunmoral, unscrupulous, utterly ruthlessтАФhe can evade his punishment
only so long as his career of crime is uninterrupted. As the story of
Warlock's desperate flight and pursuit unfolds, we are led through the
labyrinths of a fantastic world government тАФa government literally of the
living and the dead.

┬й 1956, by Jack Vance

library of Congress Catalog Card No. 56-12123 Printed in the United
States of America

BALLANTINE BOOKS, INC.,

101 Fifth Avenue, New York 3, N. Y.



TO LIVE FOREVER



I

Clarges, the last metropolis of the world, stretched thirty miles along
the north shore of the Chant River, not far above the broadening of the Chant
into its estuary.

Clarges was an ancient city; structures, monuments, manors, old taverns,
docks and warehouses two or even three thousand years old were common. The
citizens of the Reach cherished these links with the past, drawing from them
an unconscious comfort, a mystical sense of identification with the continuity
of the city. The unique variation of the free-enterprise system by which they
lived, however, urged them to innovation; as a result Clarges was a curious
medley of the hoary and the novel, and the citizensтАФin this as in other
waysтАФsuffered the pull of opposing emotions.

There never had been such a city as Clarges for grandeur and somber
beauty. From the Mercery rose towers like tourmaline crystals, tall enough to
intercept passing clouds; surrounding were great shops, theaters and apartment