Classics fantasy – 6

– You are married?

– Yes, we go.

The screen went out. Light lit up again. We left a bathroom.

Having opened an adjacent door, Li told:

– Ying, here the person from the past with which you wanted to get acquainted.

I entered the room which I took for a lobby, and saw Li’s wife. It stood at an opposite wall. Having hospitably smiled to me, she made welcome gesture a hand.

I went to the young beautiful woman, on a habit giving a hand. But she did not raise the hand, and I remembered that at these new people of handshake are not accepted. I took still a step and hit the head against an invisible barrier. The woman burst out laughing, but immediately constrained the laughter and addressed the husband:

– Li, you unless did not warn our guest?

– I believed that he already got used to our screens – Li told.

Again screen! I was sure that I see the living woman, but not her image.

– I will leave you so far – Ying told – in ten minutes we will have supper.

The screen went out. When the room was lit with usual light, I inspected it and once again was surprised. The room was three times less bathroom and is absolutely deprived of furniture. Naked walls without uniform ledge, ornament. Really it is the only living room?

Li smiled, having noticed my surprise.

– Your dwelling is very modest – I told.

– But it is convenient and hygienic.

Li pressed a leg one checker of a parquet floor, and suddenly from a floor the round table on a round column and two chairs rose.

– You sit down – Li told.

We took seat.

– Ask – with a smile offered Li.

Really, I had to ask endlessly.

– Ale spoke to me – I began – that you have no government, there are no employees, there are no officials. But how you conduct the economy? Here you caused to me a suit. Means, someone has to keep account.

– The account at us is put is exemplary. All this becomes very simply, mechanically now. I cause the necessary thing. Mechanically she moves from a warehouse and is sent on a pneumatic pipe here. At the same time the counter celebrates a holiday of this thing. The same automatic counter sums up the results. And by the end of the year we know what need at us for Tom’ or other subject what annual gain, how many it is necessary to prepare for the future. We have no changing fashion, and some stocks pass from year to year. So in all consumer goods, up to flying cars.

– But there has to be some control? Unless you have no abuses at all?

Li in perplexity raised eyebrows.

– What abuses can be? I will call to myself the excess air boat? Why it to me? Unless I can depart on two at once? I can also sell it to nobody, first, because we have no money, and secondly because everyone can take that it is necessary for it. For the same reason there is no sense to steal or appropriate. We have no crimes of this sort at all. And not that we became more moral, and just crimes lost any purpose. We have everything that it is necessary to us. Here you told that the dwelling is very modest. But what is necessary for healthy life? Light. You see fine lighting for night.

– Electricity?

– No, bacteria.

– Bacteria?!

– Yes, the shining bacteria. And this floor-to-ceiling window for the sun. We have an ideal ventilation and heating in which, however, there is no special need as we made winter-proof all climate of our latitudes. What else?

– But cultural requirements: music, books, pictures?

– You still will get acquainted with our art, our cultural requirements.

– One more question: where there is your wife?

– On Southern Altai. Doctors prescribed it mountain air.

– Long ago?

– Two years. But for us there are no distances. We often visit each other, we meet and we speak also frequently as though we lived in one room. There are spouses and who are very loving who constantly live at distance thousands of kilometers and find it convenient. In general you should understand one thing: never before – at least at us in Europe, Asia and Africa – the mankind did not live such close-knit, solid family in spite of the fact that certain members of this multimillion family physically are more scattered, than earlier. We are in constant communication. I have friends everywhere – from a pole to a pole, and I conduct with them continuous conversations. We often have meetings, “congresses” where we discuss our public affairs. But we do all this if we want, without leaving the room.

Light went out, the screen was lit.

– Well, here and I – told Ying.

It seemed to me that it approached our table and took seat in a chair near the husband.

– Children will be today? – Li asked.

– To told me what he guards in Arabia, by all means wants to find the first for the spy, and Tsal…

– Here and I!. – and one more “ghost” – the young man very similar to Li approached a table.

“It has such big children!” – I thought.

– Today we will feast – Li told, having acquainted me with the son. – It is necessary to show to this antediluvian person, as we are a good judge of a good dish and pleasant drink.

Chapter 7

“I SEE EVERYTHING, I HEAR EVERYTHING, I KNOW EVERYTHING”

Li pressed the button at the table edge, and suddenly on a table there were two devices and extraordinary narrow as chemical flasks, high shot glasses.

At the same moment on a table of the wife of the engineer, Ying, dishes also appeared – she caused them.

Li lifted a shot glass and suggested me to look at liquid on light. The shot glass seemed a range. Liquid was poured by layers, and each layer, without mixing up with others, had the coloring.

– Drink slowly, small drinks. In this liquid there is no alcohol at all, but there is something another, harmless and… you learn.

I on the advice of Li began to drink very slowly. I cannot give my feeling. It was some flavoring symphony. Taste changed all the time, and each drink brought me inexplicable pleasure. I felt extraordinary clarity of thoughts and some special cheerfulness.