Resurrection - Robert Shea

Resurrection

Robert J. Shea returns with this intriguing short-short predicting a not too distant future where medicine, not content with stimulating life and new growth in people who had already died, goes on to further experiments which Baron von Frankenstein would have found interesting.
They had been cramped for space, him and his people. Obviously this new age had solved the problem better.
You're a fascinating person, the girl said. I've never met anyone like you before. Tell me your story again.
The man was short and stocky, with Asiatic features and a long, stringy mustache. The whole story? he asked. It would take a lifetime to tell you. He stared out the window at the yellow sun and the red sun. He still hadn't gotten used to seeing two suns. But that was minor, really, when there were so many other things he had to get used to.
A robot waiter, with long thin metal tubes for arms and legs, glided over. When he'd first seen one of those, he'd thought it was a demon. He'd tried to smash it. They'd had trouble with him at first.
They had trouble with me at first, he said.
I can imagine, said the girl. How did they explain it to you?
It was hard. They had to give me the whole history of medicine. It was years before I got over the notion that I was up in the Everlasting Blue Sky, or under the earth, or something. He grinned at the girl. She was the first person he'd met since they got him a job and gave him a home in a world uncountable light years from the one he'd been born on.
When did you begin to understand?
They simply taught all of history to me. Including the part about myself. Then I began to get the picture. Funny. I wound up teaching them a lot of history.
I bet you know a lot.
I do, the man with the Asiatic features said modestly. Anyway, they finally got across to me that in the 22nd century—they had explained the calendar to me, too; I used a different one in my day—they had learned how to grow new limbs on people who had lost arms and legs.

Robert Shea
Страница

О книге

Язык

Английский

Год издания

2009-02-09

Темы

Science fiction; Short stories

Reload 🗙