The Greatest SF Classics of Stanley G. Weinbaum. Stanley G. Weinbaum
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its own weight; the power from a pound of water comes out too gradually to raise a one–pound mass. The Urban know how to increase the rate, to make the water deliver half its energy in a hundred days —ten days."
"And if you could build rockets?"
"Then," said Jan, growing even moodier, "then we'd—" He paused abruptly. "We can detonate it," he said in a changed voice. "We can get all the energy it one terrific blast, but that's useless for a rocket."
"Why can't you use a firing chamber and explode say a gram of water at a time?" Connor asked. "A rapid series of little explosions should be just as effective as a continuous blast."
"My father tried that," Jan Or said grimly. "He's buried at the bend of the river."
Later, Connor asked Evanie why Ian was so anxious to develop atom–powered rockets. The girl turned suddenly serious eyes on him, but made no direct reply.
"The Immortals guard the secret of the Triangle," was all she said. "It's a military secret."
"But what could he do with a rocket?"
She shook her glistening hair.
"Nothing, perhaps."
"Evanie," he said soberly, "I don't like to feel that you won't trust me. I know from what you've said that you're somehow opposed to the government. Well, I'll help you, if I but I can't if you keep me in ignorance."
The girl was silent.
"And another thing," he proceeded. "This immortality process. I've heard somebody say that the results of its failures when some tried it, still haunt the world? Why, Evanie?"
Swiftly a crimson flush spread over the girl's cheeks and throat.
"Now what the devil have I said?" he cried. "Evanie, I swear I wouldn't hurt you, for the world!"
"Don't," she only murmured, turning silently away.
He, too, was hurt, because she was. He knew he owed his life to her for her treatments and hospitality. It disturbed him to think he knew of no way in which to repay her. But he was dubious of his ability to earn much as an engineer in this world of strange devices.
"I'd have to start right at the bottom," he observed ruefully to Evanie when he spoke of that later.
"In Urbs," Evanie said, "you'd be worth your weight in radium as a source of ancient knowledge. So much has been lost; so much is gone, perhaps forever. Often we have only the record of a great man's name, and no trace of his work. Of these is a man named Einstein and another named de Sitter acknowledged to be supreme geniuses of science even by the supreme scientists of your age. Their work is lost."
"I'm afraid it will remain lost, then," he said whimsically. "Both Einstein and de Sitter were contemporaries of mine, but I wasn't up to understanding their theories. All I know is that they dealt with space and time, and a supposed curvature of space—Relativity, the theory was called."
"But that's exactly the clue they'd want in Urbs!" exclaimed Evanie, her eyes shining. "That's all they need. And think of what you could tell them of ancient literature! We haven't the artists and writers you had—not yet. The plays of a man named Shakespeare are still the most popular of all on the vision broadcasts. I always watch them." She looked up wistfully. "Was he also a contemporary of yours? And did you know a philosopher named Aristotle?"
Connor laughed.
"I missed the one by three centuries and the other by twenty–five!" he chuckled.
"I'm sorry," said the girl, flushing red. "I don't know much of history."
He smiled warmly.
"If I thought I could actually earn something—if I could pay you for all the trouble I've been, I'd go to the city of Urbs for awhile—and then come back here. I'd like to pay you."
"Pay me?" she asked in surprise. "We don't use money here, except for taxes."
"Taxes?"
"Yes. The Urban taxes. They come each year to collect, and it must be paid in money." She frowned angrily. "I hate Urbs and all it stands for! I hate it!"
"Are the taxes so oppressively high?"
"Oppressive?" she retorted. "Any tax is oppressive! It's a difference in degree, that's all! As long as a government has the right to tax, the potential injustice is there. And what of other rights the Master arrogated to himself?" She paused as if to let the full enormity of that strike in.
"Well?" he said carelessly, "that's been a privilege granted to the heads of many governments, hasn't it?"
Her eyes blazed. "I can't understand a man who's willing to surrender his natural rights!" she flared. "Our men would die for a principle!"
"But they're not doing it," observed Connor caustically.
"Because they'd be throwing their lives away uselessly —that's why! They can't fight the Master now with any chance of success. But just wait until the time comes!"
"And then, I suppose, the whole world will be just one great big beautiful state of anarchy."
"And isn't that an ideal worth fighting for?" asked the girl hotly. "To permit every single individual to attain his rightful liberty? To destroy every chance of injustice?"
"But—"
Connor paused, considering. Why should he be arguing like this with Evanie? He felt no allegiance to the government of Urbs; the Master meant nothing to him. The only government he could have fought for, died for, was lost a thousand years in the past. Whatever loyalty he owed in this topsy–turvy age belonged to Evanie. He grinned. "Crazy or not, Evanie," he promised, "your cause is mine!"
She softened suddenly.
"Thank you, Tom." Then, in lower tones, "Now you know why Jan Orm is so anxious for the secret of the rocket blast. Do you see?" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Revolution!"
He nodded. "I guessed that. But since you've answered one question, perhaps you'll answer my other one. What are the failures that still haunt the world, the products of the immortality treatment?"
Again that flush of unhappiness.
"He meant—the metamorphs," she murmured softly. Quickly she rose and passed into the cottage.
The Metamorphs
Connor's strength swiftly approached normal, and shortly little remained of that unbelievable sojourn in the grave. His month's grizzle of beard began to be irritating, and one day he asked Jan for a razor.
Jan seemed puzzled; at Connor's explanation he laughed, and produced a jar of salve that quickly dissolved the stubble, assuring Connor that the preparation would soon destroy the growth entirely.
But Evanie's reaction surprised him. She stared for a moment without recognition.
"Tom!" she cried. "You look—you look like an ancient statue!"
He did look different from the mild–featured villagers. With the beard removed, his lean face had an aura of strength and ruggedness that was quite unlike the appearance of his neighbors.
Time slipped pleasantly away. Evenings he spent talking to newly made friends, relating stories of his dead age, explaining the state of politics, society, and science in that forgotten time. Often Evanie joined in the conversation, though at other times she amused herself at the "vision," a device of remarkable perfection, on whose two–foot screen actors in distant cities spoke and moved with the naturalness of miniature life.
Connor himself saw "Winter's Tale" and "Henry the Eighth" given in accurate portrayal, and was once surprised to discover a familiar–seeming musical comedy, complete to scantily–clad chorus. In many ways Evanie puzzled Tom Connor. There was some mystery about