The Black Flame (Dystopian Novel). Stanley G. Weinbaum
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green shirt. She had rolled the full sleeves to her shoulders. Hers was like the costume of the men who had brought him here.
"Whahya?" she said softly.
He understood.
"Oh! I'm—uh—Thomas Connor, of course."
"F'm 'ere?"
"From St. Louis."
"Selui? 'S far off."
Far off? Then where was he? Suddenly a fragment of memory returned. The trial—Ruth—that catastrophic episode of the grim chair. Ruth! The yellow–haired girl he had once adored, who was to have been his wife—the girl who had coldly sworn his life away because he had killed the man she loved.
Dimly memory came back of how he had found her in that other man's arms on the very eve of their wedding; of his bitter realization that the man he had called friend had stolen Ruth from him. His outraged passions had flamed, the fire had blinded him, and when the ensuing battle had ended, the man had been crumpled on the green sward of the terrace, with a broken neck.
He had been electrocuted for that. He had been strapped in that chair!
Then—then the niche on the hill. But how—how? Had he by some miracle survived the burning current? He must have—and he still had the penalty to pay!
He tried desperately to rise.
"Must leave here!" he muttered. "Get away—must get away." A new thought. "No! I'm legally dead. They can't touch me now; no double jeopardy in this country. I'm safe!"
Voices sounded in the next room, discussing him.
"F'm Selui, he say," said a man's voice. "Longo, too." "Eah," said another. " 'S lucky to live—lucky! 'L be rich."
That meant nothing to him. He raised his hand with a great effort; it glistened in the light with an oil of some sort. It was no longer cracked, and the ghost of a layer of tissue softened the bones. His flesh was growing back.
His throat felt dry. He drew a breath that ended in a tickling cough.
"Could I have some water?" he asked the girl.
"N–n–n!" She shook her head. "N' water. S'm licket?" "Licket?" Must be liquid, he reflected. He nodded, and drank the mug of thick fluid she held to his lips.
He grinned his thanks, and she sat beside him. He wondered what sort of colony was this into which he had fallen—with their exotic dress and queer, clipped English.
His eyes wandered appreciatively over his companion; even if she were some sort of foreigner, she was gloriously beautiful, with her bronze hair gleaming above the emerald costume.
"C'n talk," she said finally as if in permission.
He accepted. "What's your name?"
"'M Evanie Sair. Evanie the Sorc'ess."
"Evanie the Sorceress!" he echoed. "Pretty name—Evanie. Why the Sorceress, though? Do you tell fortunes?" The question puzzled her.
"N'onstan," she murmured.
"I mean—what do you do?"
"Sorc'y." At his mystified look, she amplified it. "To give strength—to make well." She touched his fleshless arm.
"But that's medicine—a science. Not sorcery."
"Bah. Science—sorc'y. 'S all one. My father, Evan Sair
the Wizard, taught me." Her face shadowed. "'S dead now." Then abruptly: "Whe's your money?" she asked. He stared. "Why—in St. Louis. In a bank."
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "N–n–n! Selui! N'safe!"
"Why not?" He started. "Has there been another flood of bank–bustings?"
The girl looked puzzled.
"N'safe," she reiterated. "Urbs is better. For very long, Urbs is better." She paused. "When'd you sleep?"
"Why, last night."
"N–n–n. The long sleep."
The long sleep! It struck him with stunning force that his last memories before that terrible awakening had been of a September world—and this was mid–summer! A horror gripped him. How long—how long—had he lain in his—grave? Weeks? No—months, at least.
He shuddered as the girl repeated gently, "When?"
"In September," he muttered.
"What year?"
Surprise strengthened him. "Year? Nineteen thirty–eight, of course!"
She rose suddenly. "'S no Nineteen thirty–eight. 'S only Eight forty–six now!"
Then she was gone, nor on her return would she permit him to talk. The day vanished; he slept, and another day dawned and passed. Still Evanie Sair refused to allow him to talk again, and the succeeding days found him fuming and puzzled. Little by little, however, her strange clipped English became familiar.
So he lay thinking of his situation, his remarkable escape, the miracle that had somehow softened the discharge of Missouri's generators. And he strengthened. A day came when Evanie again permitted speech, while he watched her preparing his food.
"Y'onger, Tom?" she asked gently. "'L bea soon." He understood; she was saying, "Are you hungry, Tom? I'll be there soon."
He answered with her own affirmative "Eah," and watched her place the meal in a miraculous cook stove that could be trusted to prepare it without burning.
"Evanie," he began, "how long have I been here?"
"Three months," said Evanie. "You were very sick."
"But how long was I asleep?"
"You ought to know," retorted Evanie. "I told you this was Eight forty– six."
He frowned.
"The year Eight forty–six of what?"
"Just Eight forty–six," Evanie said matter of factly. "Of the Enlightenment, of, course. What year did you sleep?"
"I told you—Nineteen thirty–eight," insisted Connor, perplexed. "Nineteen thirty–eight, A.D."
"Oh," said Evanie, as if humoring a child.
Then, "A.D.?" she repeated. "Anno Domini, that means. Year of the Master. But the Master is nowhere near nineteen hundred years old."
Connor was nonplussed. He and Evanie seemed to be talking at cross– purposes. He calmly started again.
"Listen to me," he said grimly. "Suppose you tell me exactly what you think I am—all about it, just as if I were a—oh, a Martian. In simple words."
"I know what you are," said Evanie. "You're a Sleeper. Often they wake with muddled minds."
"And what," he pursued doggedly, "is a Sleeper?"
Surprisingly Evanie answered that, in a clear, understandable—but most astonishing—way. Almost as astonished herself that Connor should not know the answer to his question.
"A Sleeper," she said simply, and Connor was now able to understand her peculiar clipped speech—the speech of all these people—with comparative ease, "is one of those who undertake electrolepsis. That is, have themselves put to sleep for a long term of years to make money."
"How? By exhibiting themselves?"
"No," she said. "I mean that those who want wealth badly enough, but won't spend years working for it, undertake the Sleep. You must remember that—if you have forgotten so much else. They put their money in the banks. organized for the Sleepers. You will remember. They guarantee six percent. You see, don't you? At that rate a Sleeper's money increases three hundred times a century—three hundred units for each one deposited. Six percent doubles their money every twelve years. A thousand becomes a fortune of three hundred thousand, if the Sleeper outlasts a century—and if he lives."
"Fairy