The One-Eyed Man E-Book

Lester Del Rey

• Herausgeber: Wildside Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 43

Beschreibung

In a future where everyone is implanted with the same knowledge, the Dictator has created a humanity of ruthless zombies. But the one who can see the truth must protect himself at all costs—because in this world of the blind, the one-eyed man isn't king—he will be killed!

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

THE ONE-EYED MAN, by Lester del Rey

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 1945, 1973 by Lester del Rey.

Originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, May 1945, under the pseudonym “Philip St. John.”

Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.

Published by Wildside Press LLC.

wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

THE ONE-EYED MAN,by Lester del Rey

A blank-faced zombie moved aside as Jimmy Bard came out of the Dictator’s office, but he did not notice it; and his own gesture of stepping out of the way of the worried, patrolling adult guards was purely automatic. His tall, well-muscled body went on doing all the things long habit had taught it, while his mind churned inside him, rebelling hopelessly at the inevitable.

For a moment, the halls were free of the countless guards, and Jimmy moved suddenly to one of the walls, making quick, automatic motions with his hands. There was no visible sign of change in the surface, but he drew a deep breath and stepped forward; it was like breasting a strong current, but then he was inside and in a narrow passageway, one of the thousands of secret corridors that honeycombed the whole monstrous castle.

Here there could be no adults to remind him of what he’d considered his deficiencies, nor of the fact that those deficiencies were soon to be eliminated. The first Dictator Bard had shared the secret of the castle with none save the murdered men who built it; and death had prevented his revealing it even to his own descendants. No tapping would ever reveal that the walls were not the thick, homogenous things they seemed, for tapping would set off alarms and raise stone segments where needed, to make them as solid as they appeared. It was Jimmy’s private kingdom, and one where he could be bedeviled only by his own thoughts.

But today, those were trouble enough. Morbid fascination with them drove him forward through the twisting passages until he located a section of the wall that was familiar, and he pressed his palm against it. For a second, it seemed cloudy, and then was transparent, as the energies worked on it, letting vibration through in one direction only. He did not notice the quiet sounds of those in the room beyond but riveted his eyes on the queer headpieces worn by the two girls and single boy within.

Three who had reached their twelfth birthday today and were about to become adults—or zombies! Those odd headpieces were electronic devices that held all the knowledge of a complete, all-embracing education, and they were now working silently, impressing that knowledge onto the minds of their wearers at some two hundred million impulses a second, grooving it permanently into those minds. The children who had entered with brains filled only with the things of childhood would leave with all the information they could ever need, to go out into the world as full adults, if they had withstood the shock of education. Those who failed to withstand it would still leave with the same knowledge, but the character and personality would be gone, leaving them wooden-faced, soul-less zombies.

Once Jimmy had sat in one of those chairs, filled with all the schemes and ambitions of a young rowdy about to become a man. But that time, nothing had happened! He could remember the conferences, the scientific attempts to explain his inability to absorb information from the compellor Aaron Bard had given the world, and his own tortured turmoil at finding himself something between an adult and a zombie, useless and unwanted in a world where only results counted. He had no way of knowing, then, that all the bitter years of adjusting to his fate and learning to survive in the contemptuous world were the result of a fake. It was only within the last hour that he had discovered that.

“Pure fake, carefully built up!” His Dictator father had seemed proud of that, even over the worry and desperation that had been on his face these last few days. “The other two before you who didn’t take were just false leads, planted to make your case seem plausible; same with the half dozen later cases. You’d have burned—turned zombie, almost certainly. And you’re a Bard, someday to dictate this country! I took the chance that if we waited until you grew older, you’d pass, and managed to use blank tapes… Now I can’t wait any longer. Hell’s due to pop, and I’m not ready for it, but if I can surprise them, present you as an adult… Be back here at six sharp, and I’ll have everything ready for your education.”

Ten years before, those words would have spelled pure heaven to him. But now the scowl deepened on his forehead as he slapped off the one-way transparency. He’d learned a lot about this world in those ten years and had seen the savage ruthlessness of the adults. He’d seen no wisdom, but only cunning and cleverness come from the Bard psychicompellors.

“Damn Aaron Bard!”