Laurence Manning by The Man Who Awoke

Author:The Man Who Awoke
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Published: 2012-06-03T19:35:55+00:00

CHAPTER 3

The Conspiracy

The next day Winters awoke very tired and with aching bones and was only too glad to be left quietly by himself. Eric led him into a small, dark room and seated him in a comfortable chair. A series of numbered knobs set into a wall panel controlled the sight and sound records and Eric turned the knob which controlled the history records. A screen on the wall lit up. Winters gazed, fascinated, at a forest scene taken ten thousand years before. He again saw the gayly colored foresters and viewed rapidly a complete record of the operations by which their physical needs were extracted from forest products.

And then he saw the dance of autumn festival about which he had been told so long ago. He heard the joyous singing of the maidens in their autumn-colored costumes, and his thoughts went back to that brief and unpleasant adventure. He turned the knob again and again to see new pictures and customs unroll before his eyes. He came to the days when the mechanical Brain ruled supreme and later to the reconstruction period following its destruction. And then, like a shock of cold water, there appeared his own image. He heard himself addressing the council of black-robed educators! How could this be? A recording machine must have been present in the room without his knowledge! He saw again the countenances of his two friends in that age—five thousand years ago—and mused sadly upon the great gulf of years that separated him from them. So real and vivid was the picture—in full perspective and color—that he could hardly refrain from calling out to them.

By the end of that day Winters fully realized how lifelike the dreams of the sleepers in the palace must be. He wondered no more that they should give up the waking life for their mechanically contrived paradise. But he saw more clearly than ever how marked the trend was toward the extinction of human life, and he became determined to speak to his young companions anew upon the subject. And that evening, as all five of them sat around their meal, he did so.

“Eric, do you remember when I spoke about the almost certain result of the dream machines? If I offend your morals and scruples, I am sorry, but I would rather die myself than see the human race so doomed and do nothing to save it. Are there in no part of the world savages or uncivilized men not likely to take up this custom of sacrificing life for a shadow?”

“The human race is one, Winters. It was civilized long ago.”

“Then do you four have no regrets that the race should perish?”

The young men looked at each other furtively.

“We may as well tell him,” said Thorley.

“All right,” said Eric. “For two days we four have been agreed upon the wisdom of your suggestion. We have determined to gather a group of colonists and escape into the wilderness to start life all over again.”

“Oh thank God!” Winters cried, his eyes filled with tears.

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