«Anyway, just a couple of years ago, in 1950 I believe, Seaton found an effect, a field, in which entropy was held level. An object in such a field could not experience any time flow—for it, time would not exist. The generation of such a field turned out to be fairly simple once the basic principles were discovered, so that before long we had the Crypt.»
Hart nodded—although he didn’t understand it even now. Science had bored him; he regarded himself as a natural-born aesthete and observer of man, a pursuit which a medium-sized independent income made possible. He wrote a little, painted a little, played the piano a little, went to all the exhibitions and concerts, chose his friends and occasional mistresses primarily on a basis of conversational ability, and in general had a pretty good time.
The fundamental idea of the Crypt was hardly new to him. He had read the old legends—the Seven Sleepers, the tales of Herla, Frederik Barbarossa, and Holger Danske—of men for whom time had stopped until the remote future date when they awoke. Only last night, his last night in this world, he had played the whole Tannhäuser in an orgy of sentimentality.
There was always a catch. But he had very little to lose. A cancer which had metastasized to the lymph glands meant a short and unpleasant life, perhaps prolonged by operations hopelessly carving away more and more of his flesh—better to take some poison and go out like a gentleman.
Or, better yet, go into the future when they would have worked out some sure and easy cure for his sickness. And perhaps, he thought, a cure for the political cancers which ate at his own society, a cure for war and poverty and misery. Utopia was not inherently unattainable, to a close approximation anyway… For a moment he was almost looking forward to the adventure, but the tightness and the heavy pulse wouldn’t leave him. He liked his present existence, and the future would have to be pretty good to make up for his present.
Though I’m lucky, he thought. I have no really close ties, none who’ll really miss me or whom I can’t live without. And I have a high I. Q. and adaptability, I can get along with almost anybody. I won’t suffer.
He asked, «Are there any people besides those with diseases at present incurable going into the Crypt?»
«No,» answered the doctor, «except, of course, husbands and wives who wish to accompany their sick spouses, and a few other special cases like that. We just don’t have room for any more.
«Naturally,» he went on, «we’re swamped with applications from people who want to escape the tribulations of the present for a presumably happier future. But those we ignore. There’s been talk of developing level-entropy units which can be used for everyday purposes like preserving food or other perishables, or even in the household. Imagine cooking a chicken dinner, putting it in the field, and taking it out piping hot whenever needed, maybe twenty years hence! But the manufacturers are very careful about releasing stasis generators, precisely because too many people would try to take a one-way ride into tomorrow. What would become of the present—and would the future want our neurotic escapists?
«Several state legislatures have already tried to regulate the use of the Seaton effect, and Congress is arguing about a Federal law. Meanwhile, the Crypt staff uses it simply to save lives which are lost to the present anyway.»
«If you can be sure they are saved—» murmured Hart.
«Of course, we can give no hundred-percent guarantee,» said the doctor with elaborate patience, «but I think it’s a very safe bet. The Crypt is in an underground vault well away from any area which might be presumable atomic-bomb targets. Not that even an atom bomb could penetrate a stasis field. Once the fields are set up, they’re self-maintaining until neutralized from outside. Information about the Crypt is diffused throughout the world by now, even if something should happen to the permanent staff, which is unlikely. Whenever a cure for a specific disease is found, we will consult our records and release those suffering from it.»
«Yes, yes, I know all that,» said Hart. «But what kind of future—?»
«Who knows?» The doctor shrugged. «But I don’t think it will be too hard to adjust. I rather imagine that a smart Roman or Elizabethan Englishman, say, could do very well for himself in the present. Besides, at the rate medical science is advancing, I don’t think anyone will be in here longer than fifty or a hundred years.»
«And making a living—»
«You invested all your money as safely as possible before coming here, didn’t you? You’ll still have it when you awake, then, or the equivalent of it if they change the fiscal system. The Crypt staff will see to that if it isn’t taken care of automatically. You’ll also have quite a bit of accumulated interest.»
Hart nodded his sleek dark head. «It seems as sound a proposition as human ingenuity can make it,» he said. He added wryly, «Anyway, there’s no point in quibbling, not when the old man with the scythe is so close.»
«Quite so,» said the doctor.
They came to the end of the passage, where a great vault door sealed off the Crypt itself. The doctor worked the multiple combination lock, remarking idly, «Even if this whole place should be destroyed, the sleepers would be safe. Literally nothing from outside except a neutralizing field can penetrate the stasis. You could be buried under ten tons of earth without its making any difference—till they dug you out and opened your field.»
«There are things worse than death,» muttered Hart, and then added quickly, «but hardly worse than death by cancer.»
«Quite.» The doctor started the little motor which opened the huge door. «In a way,» he said, «I envy you. You’ll wake up rich, in a society which is better than ours—it must be, it couldn’t be much worse—and has all the great new adventures we’re just beginning to glimpse—the planets, the stars…» He shrugged. «I may see you again, of course. They’re working hard on the cancer problem right now. But I’ll be a pretty old man then.»
Hart nodded. «Benjamin Franklin once said he wished that, after he was dead, somebody would wake him every hundred years and tell him what happened. I see his point.»
They entered the Crypt. The room was a huge one, cold in steel and concrete and the white fluorescent lighting. There was little about to suggest the sensation it was arousing in the outer world. It looked much like a burial vault—a sinister thought, that, and one which Hart did his best to abolish—with its long row on row of steel caskets sliding into the walls. Each box, Hart noticed, had a complete case history engraved on its end.
The doctor followed his eye. «Those supplement our other records, in case they get lost,» he said. «The future physicians can read directly what is the matter with each patient. And just in case something should happen to the Crypt itself, everyone takes another case history into stasis with him, like the one you’re carrying now. So if it should become necessary, if nothing else survived, you could always be ‘wakened’ for the sole purpose of reexamination. But all those precautions are more for the benefit of worriers than because we think they’ll ever be needed.»
«The patients are actually in those—coffins?»