"Jack Williamson - Afterlife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williamson Jack)

and tell him how they worked.

He watched me slop the hogs and milk the cows that night, and went with my parents to
the hymn service at the church while I stayed home to finish the chores. My mother let him
sleep in the room that had been my sister's. Next morning he watched my father kindle the
fire in the old cast iron stove and watched my mother fix the breakfast. When we had
eaten, he looked sharply at me and asked what I planned for the future.

"I never had a future," I told him. "I always longed to get away, but never had a chance."

"If he had a chance --" He turned to my parents. "Could you let him go?"

They stared at him and whispered together.

"If he could really get away --" My mother tried to smile at my father. "We have each
other."

My father nodded solemnly. "The Lord's will be done."

The inspector let his shrewd eyes measure me again.

"It would be forever," he told me gravely. "As final as death."

"Let him go," my father said. "He has earned his own salvation."

The inspector took me out to see his skipship. It was strange and wonderful, but I was too
dazed and anxious to understand what he said about it. He had me sit, looked me in the
eye, and asked for more about my life.

"I stay alive," I told him. "I'm the janitor for my father's church, though I've never caught his
faith. I help him at the mill and help my mother in her garden."

My heart thumping, I waited again until he asked, "Would you like to be immortal?"

Hardly breathing, I found no words to Say.

"Perhaps you can be," he said. "If you want the risk. The immortals have to guard their
own future. They want no rivals here, but they have agreed to let us send an expedition to
colonize the Andromeda galaxy. There's a two-million-year skip each way, which leaves
them safe from any harm from us."
He frowned and shook his head.

"We ourselves can't feel so confident. No skip so far has ever been attempted. It's a jump
into the dark, with no data to let us compute any sure destination. We may be lost forever
from our own universe of space, with no way back. Even if we're lucky, we'll have new
frontiers to face, with our industrial infrastructure still to build. We're likely to need the skills
and the knowledge you have learned here. I can sign you on, if you want the chance."

I said I did.