"Blish, James - Beep" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blish James)

one curve of his cheek, just next to his nose. He stripped
away the overlooked bit of tissue and examined it critically.
"Of course not. Disguise is an elementary part of Service
work. Anyone could guess that. We don't use it often, as a
matter of factonly on very simple assignments."
"Oh." The hoppy sounded slightly disappointed, as melo-
drama faded. He drove silently for about a minute. Then,
speculatively: "Sometimes I think the Service must have
time-travel, the things they pull. . . . Well, here you are.
Good luck, mister."
"Thanks."
Jo went directly to Krasna's office. Krasna was a
Randolpher. Earth-trained, and answerable to the Earth office,
but otherwise pretty much on his own. His heavy, muscular
face wore the same expression of serene confidence that was
characteristic of Service officials everywhereeven some
that, technically speaking, had no faces to wear it.
"Boy meets girl," Jo said briefly. "On the nose and on
the spot."
"Good work, Jo. Cigarette?" Krasna pushed the box across
his desk.
"Nope, not now. Like to talk to you, if you've got time."
Krasna pushed a button, and a toadstoollike chair rose out
of the floor behind Jo. "What's on your mind?"
"Well," Jo said carefully. "I'm wondering why you patted
me on the back just now for not doing a job."
"You did a job."
"I did not," Jo said flatly. "Boy would have met girl,
whether I'd been here on Randolph or back on Earth, The
course of true love always runs smooth. It has in all my
boy-meets-girl cases, and it has in the boy-meets-girl cases
of every other agent with whom I've compared notes."
"Well, good," Krasna said, smiling. "That's the way we
like to have it run. And that's the way we expect it to run.
But, Jo, we like to have somebody on the spot, somebody
with a reputation for resourcefulness, just in case there's a
snag. There almost never is, as you've observed. Butif
there were?"
Jo snorted. "If what you're trying to do is to establish
preconditions for the future, any interference by a Service
agent would throw the eventual result farther off the track.
I know that much about probability."
"And what makes you think that we're trying to set up
the future?"
"It's obvious even to the hoppies on your own planet; the
one that brought me here told me he thought the Service had
time-travel. It's especially obvious to all the individuals and
governments and entire populations that the Service has
bailed out of serious messes for centuries, with never a single
failure." Jo shrugged. "A man can be asked to safeguard