going far aside from the general network. I do not know by what reasons builders of mines were guided, laying this gallery. I was interested in another: in this mine there could be bodies which are not injured by accident. I immediately reported about it to our government. The special expedition was equipped. Started excavation. After several weeks of unsuccessful searches we managed to open an entrance to this mine. It was almost not touched, and we went to its depth.
The terrible show was presented to our eyes. Along a long corridor in walls niches in three ranks were arranged, and in them bodies lay. Closer to an entrance, obviously, hot air got, at explosion it killed the people lying in anabiosis at once. Closer to the middle of mines temperature, probably, increased more slowly, and several workers recovered, but they probably died from suffocation, hunger or cold. Their distorted persons and convulsively brought together members spoke about agonal sufferings.
At last in depth of the mine, behind the covered turn, there was equal cold temperature. Here we found only three bodies, other niches were empty. With all precautions we tried to recover them. And we managed it.
The famous astronomer Eduard Lesley whose death was mourned by all scientific world, the second – the poet Mere and the third – Bendzhemin Johnson who is just brought by me here on the airplane was the first of them… If my words are not enough, in confirmation of them I can provide indisputable proofs. I terminated!
All sat silently, struck with the story. At last Johnson heaved a deep sigh and told:
– Means, I overslept seventy three years? Why you did not tell me about it at once? – he addressed reproachfully Kruks.
– My dear, I was afraid to subject you to too strong shock after your awakening.
– Seventy three years!. – in thought Johnson spoke. – What at us now year?
– August, one thousand nine hundred ninety eighth.
– Then I was twenty five years old, so now to me ninety eight…
– But biologically remained to you twenty five – Kruks answered – as all your vital processes were suspended while you lay in a condition of anabiosis.
– But Frederica, Frederik!. – with melancholy Johnson exclaimed.
– Alas, it is absent long ago! – told Kruks.
– My mother died thirty years ago – the old man creaked.
– Here so piece! – the young man exclaimed. And, addressing Johnson, he told: – Then that you my grandfather! You are younger than me, you have a seventy-five-year-old son!.
It seemed to Johnson that he raves. He carried out by a palm on the forehead.
– Yes… son! Samuel! My little Samuel is this old man! Frederica is absent… You – my grandson – addressed he the to the namesake to Bendzhemin – and that woman and the child?.
– My wife and son…
– Your son… Means, my great-grandson! It at the same age at what I left my little Samuel!
Johnson’s thought refused to perceive that this decrepit old man also is his son… The old man the son also could not recognize in young, blossoming, as the twenty-fifth anniversary to the young man of the father…
And they sat confused, in awkward silence looking at each other…
VIII. AGASFER
There passed nearly two months after Johnson returned to life.
In cold, windy September day it played in a garden with the great-grandson George.
This game consisted that the boy took seat in the small flying car – a computer-controlled aviette. Johnson adjusted management personnel, launched the motor, and the boy, loudly shouting from delight, flew around a garden at the height of three meters from the earth. After several circles the device smoothly fell by in advance defined place.
Johnson long could not get used to this new children’s entertainment unknown in his life. He was afraid that to the mechanism there can be something and the child will fall and rasshibtsya. However the aircraft operated perfectly.
«To put the child on the bicycle too it seemed to us once dangerous» – Johnson thought, watching the flying great-grandson.
Suddenly the sharp wind gust rejected an aviette aside. Mechanical control was regained immediately by the broken balance, but wind carried the device aside. An aviette, having changed the direction of flight, flew on an apple-tree and got stuck in tree branches.
The child in a fright cried. Johnson, in not a smaller fright, rushed to the aid of the great-grandson. He quickly scrambled on an apple-tree and began to remove little George.
– And how many times I spoke to you that you did not arrange your flights in a garden! – suddenly Johnson heard a voice of the son Samuel. The old man stood on a porch and in anger shook by a fist.
– There is, apparently, a platform for flights – no, by all means it is necessary in a garden! Not rumors! A trouble with these boys! Here you will break to me apple-trees, I you!.
Johnson was revolted by this old man egoism. The old man Samuel very much loved baked apples and worried for an integrity of apple-trees more, than for life of the grandson.
– Well you, be not forgotten! – Johnson exclaimed, addressing the old man to the son. – This garden was for the first time divorced by me when still you did not exist! Also shout at someone else. Do not forget that I am your father!
– Well, that father? – peevishly the old man answered. – On favor of destiny, my father was a boy! You to me almost in grandsons are fit! Seniors should obey! – tutorially it finished.
– Parents should obey! – Johnson was not appeased, lowering the great-grandson on the earth. – And besides, I also am more senior than you. I am ninety eight years old!
Little George ran to the house to mother.
The old man stood a little more, moving lips, then angrily waved a hand and too left.
Johnson brought an aviette to the big garden arbor replacing a hangar and there wearily fell by a bench among shovels and a rake.
He felt lonely.
With the old man the son he did not have relations at all. The twenty-five-year-old father and the seventy-five-year-old son is the ratio of years, not corresponding to anything, put a barrier between them. As Johnson strained the imagination, it refused to connect together two images: little two-year-old Samuel and this decrepit old man.
Most closer he met with the great-grandson – George. Youth is eternal. The spirit of modern times did not leave the mark on George. Child at the age of George rejoices to both a ray of sunlight, and a tender smile, and red apple the same as children of its age rejoiced thousands years ago. Besides and the person he reminded his son – Samuel child… George’s mother, Elaine, also resembled to Johnson Frederik, and he stopped on her a look of the grieving tenderness more than once. But in the
