（外文电子版资料）Benford, Gregory - Doing Lennon.pdfVIP

Doing Lennon Gregory Benford A DF Books N.E.R.D’s Release Copyright (C)1975 Gregory Benford First published in Analog Magazine of Science Fact and Fiction, April 1975 Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting. —JOHN RUSSELL As the hideous cold seeps from him he feels everything becoming sharp and clear again. He decides he can do it, he can make it work. He opens his eyes. “Hello.” His voice rasps. “Bet you arent expecting me. Im John Lennon.” “What?” the face above him says. “You know. John Lennon. The Beatles.” Professor Hermann—the name attached to the face which loomed over him as he drifted up, up from the Long Sleep—is vague about the precise date. It is either 2108 or 2180. Hermann makes a little joke about inversion of positional notation; it has something to do with nondenumerable set theory, which is all the rage. The ceiling glows with a smooth green phosphorescence and Fielding lies there letting them prick him with needles, unwrap his organiform nutrient webbing, poke and adjust and massage as he listens to a hollow pock-pocketa . He knows this is the crucial moment, he must hit them with it now. “Im glad it worked,” Fielding says with a Liverpool accent. He has got it just right, the rising pitch at the end and the nasal tones. “No doubt there is an error in our log,” Hermann says pedantically. “You are listed as Henry Fielding.” Fielding smiles. “Ah, thats the ruse, you see.” Hermann blinks owlishly. “Deceiving Immortality Incorporated is—” “I was fleeing political persecution, ydig. Coming out for the workers and all. Writing songs about persecution and pollution and the working-class hero. Snarky stuff. So when the jackboot skinheads came in I decided to check out.” Fielding slips easily into the story he has memorized, all plotted and placed with major characters and minor characters and bits of incident, all of it s