Read "The Man Who Awoke" by Laurence Manning online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
At the establishment of Meanus there was holiday. Little Yard climbed to the top of the partition wall and would have fallen had he not been found by some of the older children. Trogly, who was twenty years of age, had coolly taken possession of a living machine and had set off to see the great wide world-a project he had been impatiently awaiting for the past six months, to carry out at the first opportunity. So the responsibility of the household fell upon young Bork and the girl, Farinda.
In the year 20,000 A.D. this was a less difficult task than one might think. In the first place, food and drink were automatically produced by the living machines at the mere touch of a button. Control of temperature and humidity in the rooms was similarly arranged for by the almost indestructible atomic motors in the power room. There was little left, except the education of the other children, and the sound-and-sight library made this task a sinecure.