Читать книгу The Science Fiction Anthology онлайн

774 страница из 776

She did not answer him. Finally he said, “It doesn’t make sense to you, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t. This is not the time for such discussions, anyway. The Agents have their machines working at top speed, while we sit here and talk.”

Suddenly they were not alone.

No sound was generated by the man’s coming. One instant they were talking alone, the next he was here. Earl saw him first. He was a middle-aged man whose hair was completely white. He stood near the desk, easily, as if standing there were the most natural way to relax. He was entirely nude ... but it seemed natural and right.

Then Mrs. Jamieson saw him.

“Benjamin!” she cried. “I knew someone would come.”

He smiled. “This is your son?”

“Yes,” she said. “We are ready.”

“I remember when you were born,” he said, and smiled in reminiscence. “Your father was afraid you would be twins.”

Earl said, “Why was my father killed?”

“By mistake. Back in those days, like now, there were good Konvs and bad. One of those not selected by Stinson to join us was enraged, half crazy with envy. He killed two women there in Bangkok. The Agents thought Jamieson—I mean, your father—did it. Jamieson was the greatest man among us. It was he who first conceived the theory that there was a basic, underlying law in the operation of the cylinders. Even now, no one knows how the idea of love ties in with the Stinson Effect; but we do know that hate and greed as motivating forces can greatly minimize the cylinders’ power. That is why the undesirables with cylinders have never reached Centaurus.”