"Lester Del Rey - Pursuit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Del Rey Lester)

 PURSUIT


by LESTER DEL REY




SPACE SCIENCE FICTION
MAY, 1952 Vol. 1, No. 1
Lester Del Rey, Editor
 I



Fear cut through the unconscious mind of Wilbur Hawkes. With almost physical violence, it tightened his
throat and knifed at his heart. It darted into his numbed brain, screaming at him.
He was a soft egg in a vast globe of elastic gelatine. Two creatures swam menacingly through the
resisting globe toward him. The gelatine fought against them, but they came on. One was near, and made a
mystic pass. He screamed at it, and the gelatine grew stronger, throwing them back and away. Suddenly, the
creatures drew back. A door opened, and they were gone. But he couldn't let them go. If they escapedтАж
Hawkes jerked upright in his bed, gasping out a hoarse cry, and the sound of his own voice completed the
awakening. He opened his eyes to a murky darkness that was barely relieved by the little night-light. For a
second, the nightmare was so strong on his mind that he seemed to see two shadows beyond the door,
rushing down the steps. He fought off the illusion, and with straining senses jerked his head around the
room. There was nothing there.
Sweat was beading his forehead, and he could feel his pulse racing. He had to get out - had to leave - at
once!
He forced the idea aside. There was something cloudy in his mind, but he made reason take over and
shove away some of the heavy fear. His fingers found a cigarette and lighted it automatically. The first
familiar breath of smoke in his lungs helped. He drew in deeply again, while the tiny sounds in the room
became meaningful. There was the insistent ticking of a clock and the soft shushing sound of a tape recorder.
He stared at the machine, running on fast rewind, and reversed it to play. But the tape seemed to be blank, or
erased.
He crushed the cigarette out on a table-top where other butts lay in disorder. It looked wrong, and his
mind leaped up in sudden frantic fear, before he could calm it again. This time. reason echoed his emotional
unease.
Hawkes had never smoked before!
But his fingers were already lighting another by old habit. His thoughts lurched, seeking for an answ er.
There was only a vague sense of something missing - a period of time seemed to have passed. It felt like a
long period, but he had no memory of it. There had been the final fight with Irma, when he'd gone stalking
out of the house, telling her to get a divorce any way she wanted. He'd opened the mail-box and taken out a
letter - a letter from a ProfessorтАж
His mind refused to go further. There was only a complete blank after that. But it had been in midwinter,
and now he could make out the faint outlines of full-leafed trees against the sky through the window!
Months had gone by - and there was no faintest trace of them in his mind.
They'll get you! You can't escape! Hurry, go, GO!тАж
The cigarette fell from his shaking hands, and he was half out of the bed before the rational part of his
mind could cut off the fear thoughts. He flipped on the lights, afraid of the dimness. It didn't help. The room
was dusty, as if unused for months, and there was a cobweb in one corner by the mirror.