（外文电子版资料）Robert Arthur - Evolutions End.pdf

Evolution’s End Robert Arthur (1909-1969) Aydem was pushing the humming vacuum duster along the endless stone corridors of the great underground Repository of Natural Knowledge when Ayveh, coming up quietly behind him, put her hands over his eyes. He whirled, to see Ayveh’s laughing face, mischief dancing on it. “Ayveh!” he exclaimed eagerly. “But what are you doing here? It is forbidden any woman—“ “I know.” Ayveh threw back her head, her long hair, richly golden, rippling down her shoulders to contrast with the pale apple-green of the shapeless linen robe she wore—a robe identical to Aydem’s, the universal garb of the human slaves of the more-than-human Masters who ruled the world. It was an underground world. Generations since, the Masters, their great, thin-skulled heads and mighty brains proving uncomfortably vulnerable to the ordinary rays of the sun, had retreated underground. “But Dmu Dran wishes to see you, Aydem,” the girl Ayveh went on, “and he sent me to fetch you. There are visitors arriving, and you must convey them from the tube station to his demonstration chambers. They are very important visitors.” “But why did he not transmit the order to me by directed thinking?” Aydem asked, puzzled. “He knows that even out here, in the Exhibit Section, I would receive it.” “Perhaps he sent me because he knew I wished to see you.” Ayveh suggested happily. “And because he knew you hungered for the sight of me. There are times, Aydem, when Dmu Dran actually seems to understand what feelings are.” “A Master understand feelings?” Aydem’s tone was scornful. “The Masters are nothing but brains. Great machines for thought, which know nothing of joy or sorrow or hunger for another.” “Shh!” Frightened, Ayveh put her fingers to his lips. “You must not say such things. Ge