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

"Who cares?" He shrugged, standing tall in the middle of the room. "Your world is new to
me. I come to you as a new man, an agent of eternity. I bring you the gift of eternal life."

"Eternal?" The doctor had recovered his voice. "Just what do you mean?"

"My secrets are my own." He was suddenly smiling, his voice resonant and strong. "But if
you wish to live forever, follow me."

Too many people had pushed into our house by then, and the blacksmith wanted to take
him to speak at the church. Stubbornly, my father shook his head.

"I don't know what he is, but he claims no power from God. He could be a son of Satan,
scheming to trap our souls for hell. I don't want him in my church. Get him out of my
house!"

"He's slick as a barrel of eels," the doctor agreed. "I wouldn't believe him if he swore the
sun came up this morning. But I don't--" He shrugged uneasily toward the wreckage in the
cornfield. "I want to know more about him."

The sheriff escorted him to a vacant lot. My father stayed away, but I followed with my
sister. The sheriff helped him to the top of an old stone slab that must have supported
some public monument when our world was great. We all crowded around. He stood silent
while the blacksmith spoke to tell how he had risen from the dead. The murmur of voices
died into breathless expectation as we waited for him to speak. I heard a dog barking
somewhere, and a rooster crowing. I thought he looked handsome, even in the misfit
garments.

"He can't be the demon Dad says he is." I saw a glow of awed admiration on my sister's
face. "I believe he's an angel sent from Heaven to save us."

He spread his arms to beckon us closer.

"I see that your world has suffered misfortune."

His voice rang loud and clear, but he paused to gesture at the muddy ruts we called a
street and our straggle of mud-walled, straw-roofed homes. He turned to nod at the rubble
mounds of what had been a city on the hill behind him.

"I knew poverty like yours back on the mother world. It is ruled by the rich. They live in
great mansions, with swarms of servants and every luxury. Skipping time on space flights
to their estates on other planets, they stretch their lives almost forever. The very richest can
pay for microbots."

"Microbots?" the doctor shouted. "What are they?"
"Tiny robots." He slowed his voice to help us understand. "They circulate like cells in the
blood, repairing all the damage of illness and age. Their owners are immortal, gathering
wealth and knowledge and power as they live though century after century. They have
everything.

"We mortals were poor as you are."