Rex Gordon by First Through Time

Author:First Through Time
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-09-06T12:46:12+00:00

XV

WE EMERGED onto a mosaic-tiled terrace with buildings with galleries on pillars on three sides around, and I thought I had never seen a place before that so much combined the atmospheres of a palace and a prison.

The inner entrance, through which we passed when we left the carriage, was also guarded, and then, as we came out onto the terrace, I saw that its fourth side was a parapet above the lake and I sensed the atmosphere of strangeness and luxury.

What was strange was that, after the city we had just passed through, I should find it strange to see that the people, and above all the girls who were sitting on or standing by the parapet and idly talking until they turned on hearing us enter, were normal, healthy young women of my own land, and what everyone else called "archaics". Until then, I had not seen one normal girl or female of any age, and now there were a dozen at least, with the lake and wheeling white birds as a background, and I could hear other female voices, and some male, on the galleries of the surrounding buildings.

I had stopped as soon as I entered. I had come so far only because we had been closely attended by the guards, but now they had dropped back as though to give the illusion of an area of freedom within what, from the outside, had certainly looked a prison. I said to Selwyn who with Liebnitz had accompanied me purposefully into the palatial interior:

"What is this place?"

"The Eugenics Center of Center City." He looked at me with slight amazement, as though he could not quite get used to the idea that I did not know.

Eugenics Centre? I wondered. The girls had all turned and were looking at me in a certain way, with a distinct and surprised interest. I wondered what I had got myself into. I thought: Oh nol But the more I thought, the more likely it seemed. The guarded palace atmosphere reminded me un-mistakeably of a harem, of the women's apartments of a Sultan's palace. My mind began to fill with wild ideas.

"Hold itl" I said. "Just what goes on here?" By stopping I had forced Liebnitz and Selwyn to rum back to me, and now they were looking at me as well as all the girls, and I could see other heads appearing at the rails and walls along the galleries.

"Don't imagine too much," Liebnitz told me with that expression on his face that I had seen when we were coming through the city, of cynicism and envy. "As an Oudander we certainly aren't satisfied with you yet after what must be three or four generations of breeding in the wilds. A severe physical examination will be necessary before you get the run of this place."

The girls, after looking at me, and while still looking at me with their intent and particular interest, had begun to talk and giggle and whisper among themselves.

"The question is, are you a true archaic?" Selwyn said.

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