Time Will Run Back Read Free Page B

been changed for as long as Peter could remember. But he had the same massive strength. His frame was big; his hair cropped close; his head, shoulders and chest solid and square as if hewn out of granite.
    He put his hands on his son’s shoulders, gazing at him appraisingly. Peter was surprised to discover, at this nearness, that his father was no taller than he. Peter himself was a little over six feet, but he now realized that he had unconsciously come to think of his father as being of much more than human dimensions. The enormous posters had no doubt contributed to this impression. It was almost a shock to realize that Stalenin was only another man like himself. Their eyes met on the same level.
    Stalenin’s expression, which had been grim, softened a little. “You are handsome,” he said. “Even impressive. That’s good. Important, too.” He looked at Peter again. “They tell me that you are a first-rate pianist and composer. I’m glad to hear it. If a man shows talent even in trivialities, he is apt to show it in important things also.”
    Peter flushed. Music a triviality? And how did his father come to know anything about Peter’s music? They had never written to each other. Nor had his mother, up to her death last year, exchanged a single letter with his father since she left him ten years ago. Who had been his father’s informant?
    Stalenin smiled enigmatically. “You are wondering why I sent for you?”
    Peter was silent.
    “For one thing,” Stalenin continued, “I have decided at last to give you an education. You may not know it, but you are the most ignorant man in Wonworld.”
    “But, Your Supremacy, I was told I had the very best tutors—”
    “I know all about your tutors. Their function was to protect you from any real knowledge of the modern world.”
    He went back to his desk and filled his pipe. “I lived with your mother until you were eight years old. After I became Dictator in 268—you were only five—your mother became a problem. She objected vehemently to the Great Purge of 271, which carried away her brother. That purge was absolutely necessary to the security of Wonworld. But she said she hated me and everything I stood for. She even thought you were being ‘corrupted’ by getting the same communist education as everyone else in Won-world! She defied me. No doubt she expected me to torture her, make her confess treachery, have her beheaded—”
    He paused. “I asked her to tell me exactly what it was she wanted. She said she wanted to go off somewhere—on an island—anyway, some place isolated from Wonworld, where she could have her son back and where she could bring him up without ever hearing about me or about the ideology or so-called glories of Wonworld.... I agreed to this madness. I sent her off with you to that little island in the Bermudas—how big is it?”
    “About three hectares.”
    Stalenin nodded. “I stipulated that no one was to be allowed on the island except servants to bring supplies. These supplies, as you know, were carried regularly from the main island in a small launch. Your mother wanted your place preserved, she said, as a sort of oasis in Wonworld. She asked that you be taught only the subjects selected by her. I agreed to supply the best tutors. So you were taught music, mathematics—I understand you know as much mathematics as a first-class engineer. Let’s see—what else were you taught?”
    “Physics, chemistry, astronomy, physiology, biology, horticulture, meteorology—”
    “And sports, of course,” put in Stalenin. “I’m told you swim like a professional. And that you’re a first-class chess player. That impresses me most of all. It shows a sense of strategy....
    “Nevertheless”—he was looking at a dossier in front of him—“it’s time you were told how ignorant you are of everything a modern man should know. I notice, for instance, that you are completely ignorant of history, politics, sociology and economics. Your