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drugged years. But when he tried his ragged pockets, he found them
empty. He had nothing. No credits, no memory, not even a past.
 Nothing? he thought foggily.  Nothing? And then for the first
time the impact of what he had seen in the mirror struck him hard.
 Nothing? I m immortal!
It could not be true. It was part of the dream-dust fantasy. But the feel
of his own firm cheek and hard, smooth neck muscles beneath his shaking
fingers that was no fantasy. That was real. Then the idea of forty years
gone by must be the unreality. And that man at the alley-mouth had lied.
Looking back now, it seemed to Sam that the man had looked at him
oddly, with a more than passing interest. He had assumed the man was a
passerby, but when he forced his rusty brain to remember, it seemed to
him that the man had been standing there watching him, ready to go or to
stay according to the cue Sam s conduct gave him.
He groped for the memory of the man s face, and found nothing. A
blur that looked at him and spoke. But looked with clinical interest, and
spoke with purpose and intent beyond the casual. This was the first
coherent thought that took shape in the dimness of Sam s brain, so the
stimulus must have been strong. The man must have been there for a
reason. For a reason concerned with Sam.
 Forty years, Sam murmured.  I can check that, anyhow.
The city had not changed at all. But that was no criterion. The Keeps
never changed. Far ahead, towering above the buildings, he saw the great
globe of dead Earth in its black plastic pall. He could orient himself by
that, and the shapes of the streets and buildings fell into familiar place
around him. He knew the city. He knew where he was, where his old
haunts had been, where that lavish apartment had looked down over these
glittering ways, and a girl with blue eyes had blown dust in his face.
Kedre s face swam before him in the remembered screen, tears in the
eyes, command in the gesture that brought about his downfall. Kedre and
Rosathe. He had a job to do, then. He knew Kedre s had not really been
the hand behind that poison dust, any more than Ro-sathe s had been.
Zachariah Harker was the man who gave the orders here. And Zachariah
would suffer for it. But Kedre must suffer too, and as for Rosathe Sam s
fingers curved. Rosathe he had trusted. Her crime was the worst
betrayal. Rosathe had better die, he thought.
But wait. Forty years? Had time done that job for him already? The
first thing he must learn was the date of this day on which he had
awakened. The moving street glided toward one of the big public news-
cast screens, and he knew he could check the date on that when it came
into view. But he thought he did not really need to. He could feel time s
passage. And though the city had not changed, the people had, a little.
Some of the men near him were bearded, so that much was new. Clothes
had a more extreme cut than he remembered. Fashions change in rhythm
with changing social orders, not meaninglessly but in response to known
patterns. He could work it out from that alone, he thought, if his mind
were clearer and there was no other way to learn.
The Way swung round slowly so that a corner of the newscast screen
loomed into view, and Sam noticed how few faces around him turned
toward it. He could remember a time when every neck craned and people
jostled one another in their hurry to read the news a little faster than the
moving Way would let them. All that was-over now. Apathy in direct and
easily understood contrast to the extreme new styles showed upon every
face. Sam was the only one here who craned to see the big screen.
Yes, it had been forty years.
* * *
There was something like a bright explosion in the center of his brain.
Immortality! Immortality! All the possibilities, all the dangers, all the
glories lying before him burst outward in one blinding glow. And then the
glow faded and he was afraid for a moment of maturity s responsibilities
this new, incredible maturity so far beyond anything that he had ever
dreamed of before. And then the last doubts he would feel about this
wonderful gift assailed him, and he searched his memory frantically for [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]