Flight Through TomorrowCoblentz, Stanton A. (Stanton Arthur)
Science
Flight Through Tomorrow
Coblentz, Stanton A. (Stanton Arthur)
Science fiction; Short stories
"Out of the stars we come, O men! and back to the stars we shall go,
that the best of your race may be transplanted there, and survive
through means known to us, and again be populous and great. Through the
immense evil within the breasts of your kind, you have been purged and
all but annihilated; but the good within your race has also been mighty,
and can never be expunged; and that good has called through you
surviving few to us your guardians, that we may take you to another
planet, and replenish you there, and teach you that lore of love and
truth and beauty which the blind members of your species have neglected
here while they unfitted the earth for human habitation."
So speaking, the radiant one motioned to the people, who arose, and
followed him inside the great sphere of light; and when they had all
entered, it slowly began to ascend, and slowly dwindled and disappeared
against the morning skies. And now, I knew, there was no longer a man
left anywhere on earth; yet as I gazed at the deserted shore, the empty
beach and the bare mountainside, a sense of supreme satisfaction came
over me, as though I knew that in the end, after fire and agony and
degradation, all was eternally well.
* * * * *
That sense of supreme satisfaction remained with me when, after still
another blank interval, I opened my eyes as from a deep slumber, and
stared at the familiar book-rack, the bureau, the mottled paper walls of
my own room. The clock on the little table at my side indicated the hour
of 10:09--in other words, all that had happened had occupied the space
of one minute! Yet I know as surely as I know that I write these
words--that the Release Drug had freed my spirit to range over thousands
of miles of space, and that I have looked on people and events which no
other eye will view for scores, hundreds or even thousands of years to
come.
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Fantasy Book_ Vol. 1 number 1 (1947).
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
typographical errors have been corrected without note.
End of Project Gutenberg's Flight Through Tomorrow, by Stanton Arthur Coblentz
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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