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    The Guardians
    The Guardians
    The Guardians
    Ebook49 pages33 minutes

    The Guardians

    By H. R. van Dongen and Irving E. Cox

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 26, 2013
    The Guardians

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      Book preview

      The Guardians - H. R. van Dongen

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Guardians, by Irving Cox

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: The Guardians

      Author: Irving Cox

      Release Date: January 3, 2008 [EBook #24152]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GUARDIANS ***

      Produced by Greg Weeks, David Wilson and the Online

      Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

      Transcriber’s note:

      This story was published in Astounding Science Fiction, June 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

      53

      THE GUARDIANS

      BY IRVING COX, JR.

      It’s not always The Truth shall set you free! Sometimes it’s Want of the Truth shall drive you to escape!

      And that can be dangerous!

      Illustrated by van Dongen

      54 Mryna Brill intended to ride the god-car above the rain mist. For a long time she had not believed in the taboos or the Earth-god. She no longer believed she lived on Earth. This paradise of green-floored forests and running brooks was something called Rythar.

      Six years ago, when Mryna was fourteen, she first discovered the truth. She asked a question and the Earth-god ignored it. A simple question, really: What is above the rain mist? God could have told her. Every day he answered technical questions that were far more difficult. Instead, he repeated the familiar taboo about avoiding the Old Village because of the Sickness.

      And consequently Mryna, being female, went to the Old Village. There was nothing really unusual about that. All the kids went through the ruins from time to time. They had worked out a sort of charm that made it all right. They ran past the burned out shells of the old houses and they kept their eyes shaded to ward off the Sickness.

      But even at fourteen Mryna had outgrown charms and she didn’t believe in the Sickness. She had once asked the Earth-god what sickness meant, and the screen in the answer house had given her a very detailed answer. Mryna knew that none of the hundred girls and thirty boys inhabiting Rythar had ever been sick. That, like the taboo of the Old Village, she considered a childish superstition.

      The Old Village wasn’t large—three parallel roads, a mile long, lined with the charred ruins of prefabs, which were exactly like the cottages where the kids lived. It was nothing to inspire either fear or legend. The village had burned a long time ago; the grass from the

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