Donald E. Wollheim (ed) by Avon Science Fiction Reader 01

Author:Avon Science Fiction Reader 01
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-09-01T15:42:15+00:00

rage, T threatened to smash die glass and escape. His face turned white as marble. I Ic stood, trembling with passion, hands clenched above his head, like some prophet of old about to burl imprecations upon sinners.

"Boy," he thundered, "you hold I he Inline of humanity in that club which you have in your hands. Mankind must live longer to become wise enough to conquer his environment. Shatter that glass, and man's future collapses into the dust with it. Aye, and if there is a hell, your soul will be consigned to the deepest pit."

What could a mere child do against the force of such a personality? I crept away trembling and never after that dared oppose his wishes.

His prophecy soon proved ii sol I correct. The human race entered a new _ cycle as the result ol dietary truths which I exemplified. Dr. Norton proved that a purely vegetable diet was more healthful for the human animal; that certain combinations of foods were poisonous while others were beneficial; that toxic substances in the blood will kill a man as surely as strychnine; that under right conditions of living, human machinery is little subject to breakage or deterioration—in short, during the first thirty years of my life, preventive medicine was advanced to such an extent that the average expectancy of human life jumped from 55,3 to 68 years.

One thing my father had not counted upon was the fact that I would become a man, with a man's dreams of love and fair women. And by ihe time I reached maturity there was no help for the matter. lie regretted again and again that he had not also placed a girl baby in the chamber.

It was too late for that by the time he reali'/.ed the desirability of such an experiment. I lxdieve I hastened the day ol his dcalh by refusing lo allow him to place a newly born girl in the chamber, even then, so that she might grow to maturity under the same ideal conditions, and perhaps, years later, become my mate. He must have been a soulless monster, even to think of such a scheme—and yet—and yet I loved him and while he lived did not greatly mind my confinement.

I slept eight hours daily, studied eight hours and played eight hours. The best books, cinemas and apparatus were provided for my research work. By the time I was fifty I can unhesitatingly say that I knew more than any one man in the world.

I was well dcvclojied physically also, in spite of the restricted space in which I lived, for my father had always impressed upon me the fact that a healthy body makes a healthy mind. I know that I must have been, even then, a splendid specimen of manhood, for I could not help but hear, through my loud speakers, the comments of the people who by this time were flocking from the ends of the earth to sec me.

It was a strange thing to

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