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

My father had pushed to the front of the crowd.

"By what power, and by what name," he demanded, "do you preach the resurrection of
the dead?"

"The Agent has power enough of his own." Glaring down at him, schoolmaster waved as if
to knock him aside. "He needs no other name, and some of you here witnessed his own
resurrection."

"I call him by his true names," my father shouted. "Satan! Lucifer! Beelzebub! The Prince
of Darkness!" He dropped his voice. "I am sorry to hear you repeating his lies, because all
of you were once true children of our true Lord. I beg you to repent and confess, that your
mortal sins may be blotted out--"

The schoolmaster gestured, and a bray of trumpets drowned the words.

"You call yourselves Voices," my father tried again. "I beg you to listen for the voice of God.
Listen to Him in your hearts, speaking through the Holy Ghost."

"I never met a holy ghost."

My father flushed red at the mockery.

"Listen to the words, of Eternity!" The schoolmaster raised his head to look beyond my
father. "We bring you something better than myth and ignorant superstition. I pray you to
heed the verities of scientific truth and save your own precious lives. Learn the new
science of veronics. For you with open minds, let me lay out the actual facts."

"Facts?" my father shouted. "Or Satanic lies?"

The blacksmith's son caught his arm.

"The words of the Agent." The schoolmaster frowned as if we were backward students.
"He has taught the simple truth. The veron is an energy particle. Carrying neither mass nor
dimension, it is mind without matter. The so-called human soul in fact the veronic being.
The Agent has taught us how to liberate it into Eternity. Freed from slavery to the mortal
flesh, with all its faults and ills, your immortal minds can live forever."

He paused for a paean of rousing music, and asked for questions when it ceased.

What proof could he offer?
"Look inside yourselves." He paused, with nods and smiles of recognition for my mother
and my sister. "Haven't every one of you hated the limits and pains of your bodies?
Haven't you all enjoyed moments of liberty from space and time, as you recalled the past,
looked into the future, thought of far-off friends? Those were precious glimpses of your
future freedoms in eternity!

"If you want to live forever, step forward now!"