Part 15 (2/2)
Wherever this was, it wasn't Earth--or Mars.
Nowhere?
Temple shrugged, started walking. He chose his direction at random, crus.h.i.+ng an easily discernible path behind him in the surprisingly brittle gra.s.s. The warm sun baked his back comfortably, the soft-stirring wind caressed his cheeks. Of Arkalion he found not a trace.
Two hours later Temple reached the hills and started climbing their gentle slopes. It was then that he saw the figure approaching on the run. It took him fully half a minute to realize that the runner was not human.
After months of weightless inactivity, things started to happen for Sophia. The feeling of weight returned, but weight as she never had felt it before. It was as if someone was sitting on every inch of her body, crus.h.i.+ng her down. It made her gasp, forced her eyes shut and, although she could not see it, contorted her face horribly. She lost consciousness, coming to some time later with a dreadful feeling of loginess. Someone swam into her vision dimly, stung her arm briefly with a needle. She slept.
She was on a table, stretched out, with lights glaring down at her.
She heard voices.
”The new system is far better than testing, comrade.”
”Far more efficient, far more objective. Yes.”
”The brain emits electromagnetic vibration. Strange, is it not, that no one before ever imagined it could tell a story. A completely accurate story two years of testing could not give us.”
”In Russia we have gone far with the biological, psychological sciences. The West flies high with physics. Give them Mars; bah, they can have Mars.”
”True, Comrade. The journey to Jupiter is greater, the time consumed is longer, the cost, more expensive. But here on Jupiter we can do something they cannot do on Mars.”
”I know.”
”We can make supermen. Supermen, comrade. A wedding of Nietzsche and Marx.”
”Careful. Those are dangerous thoughts.”
”Merely an allusion, comrade. Merely a harmless allusion. But you take an ordinary human being and train him on Jupiter, speeding his time-sense and metabolic rate tremendously with certain endocrine secretions so that one day is as a month to him. You take him and subject him to big Jupiter's pull of gravity, more than twice Earth's--and in three weeks you have, yes--you have a superman.”
”The woman wakes.”
”Shh. Do not frighten her.”
Sophia stretched, every muscle in her body aching. Slowly, as in a dream, she sat up. It required strength, the mere act of pulling her torso upright!
”What have you done to me?” she cried, focussing her still-dim vision on the two men.
”Nothing, comrade. Relax.”
Sophia turned slowly on the table, got one long shapely leg draped over its edge.
”Careful, comrade.”
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