"(ss) Return Engagement" - читать интересную книгу автора (Del Rey Lester)

RETURN ENGAGEMENT By Lester Del Rey

IT WAS later than Daniel Shawn had thought when they filially came out of the little farm house and headed for the big car of Tommy Rogers. It was almost sundown. And there had been a light rain.

He took a slow breath, almost tasting the vigour of the air.

Strange that it should be late, though. Time had seemed to go so slowly. The whole visit of Professor Rogers had been a mistake that was hard on both of them. Now it was ending clumsily, as it had begun and continued in awkwardness. Once Tommy had been his friend. But that was before Tommy went into Administration and Shawn had given it all up to come back here to the little Minnesota farm where he had been born.

'A rainbow!' Tommy exclaimed suddenly. 'I haven't seen one in years.'

'Nor missed it, I'll warrant,' Shawn guessed, raising his eyes to see it. It lay in the gap between the locust trees, adding a jewelled light to their dark greenness.

Tommy laughed his administrator's unoffended laugh and glanced back over the little farmyard before climbing into the car. 'What do you find here, Dan? Kerosene lamps, outdoor plumbing, not even a radio. I still say it's no place for you -when you could take over the Chair of History if you'd be sensible.'

'I was born here,' Shawn replied, evading the part of the question he didn't want to answer.

' But that was forty-five years ago!'

Shawn nodded. 'Yes. And sometimes, I think, so was the reality of myself. Let it be, Tommy, and I'll ride into Utica with you.'

Tommy couldn't let it go, of course. There was that in the

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man which hated any way of life he could not understand. Maybe that was why he'd once studied sociology, only to find that the science could never supply enough answers. He repeated his question as the motor started.

'I don't know,' Shawn answered slowly, fumbling for his pipe as he tried again to answer it to himself. 'Something I almost saw as a child and then lost. Maybe all of us lost it once. That's why I turned to history, to find where it went. But I never found it. You used to do a lot of reading once, Tommy. You tell me. What was in Spencer, in Coleridge a little, in Orlando - only like an echo, but now it's gone from all our writing.'

'I never thought there was anything like that,' Tommy said flatly.

Shawn sighed. He should have known the answer that was a part of the man. Then they reached the little village, no more than a mile from the farm. He got out, putting out a hand.

But Tommy wasn't ready to end it yet. 'If you're going to eat here, I'll join you,' he suggested.

Shawn shrugged, then nodded. He was sorry that he had given in to the man's importunings over the phone and let him make the useless drive from Chicago. There should have been an end to it now. Yet Shawn had intended to dine here, since his own cooking was no better than it should be.

He picked up tobacco and the paper at a little store before leading the other to the restaurant beside the gas station. They ordered and waited for the food, with nothing to say between them.

The paper, Shawn saw from the headlines, had been another mistake, but he glanced at it while consuming the tasteless food. There was a dark ugliness in the news. As there always was. The lilt of life was lacking in every part of it. It was heavy and ponderous, even when it tried to be witty. And around him, the few diners were filled with a heaviness that made their laughter' a deliberate effort and gave them no pleasure in the stories they told endlessly to each other.

'Why?' Shawn asked abruptly, pointing to the headlines.

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'You're still a sociologist, Tommy. Tell me, why all the dark ugliness ?'

For a moment, it seemed that there was a measure of understanding in the man. He sighed. 'Sociologists don't know much more about the present cultural matrix than anyone else, Dan. Too much technology, maybe, before the culture can absorb it. Or maybe this is just one of the plateaux in an evolution towards a sense of group maturity.' 'Maturity?' Shawn questioned bitterly.

'It could be.' And now the administrator's optimism was creeping back into the face. 'Oh, I know, there's still hate and ugly conflict. But think of the earlier ages, Dan. Look at the superstitious panics, the persecutions, the witch-burnings. There was a time when anything different from what was considered human was to be killed on sight. Children ostracize or fight with anyone who differs from the group norm. Seems to me we've improved a lot in that respect - at least in this country. We're trying to understand other peoples. Why right now, Dan, if little green men got out of a saucer, most people would be delighted to meet them. Lots of men are hoping to find alien races - look at Project Ozma. Or look at the case of that priest who is writing about the question of redemption for non-human beings. If there were werewolves today, I'll bet that there'd be a lot more scientific interest in them than fear or hatred. There wouldn't even be any persecution of witches, unless they went in for criminal activity. That could be considered a form of maturity.'