"The World Jones Made" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dick Phillip K)

Into the hygenic police cell stepped the dispatch carrier. He saluted the guards and handed over his papers.

"All right," one of the guards said, nodding to Jones. "Come along."

The wait was over; he was on his way. Exultant, Jones followed after the clanking, uniformed figure. The guard led him down a long yellow-lit corridor, to a series of magnetically-sealed locks. The locks rolled back, and beyond lay an ascending ramp lost in cold night shadow. A dark wind whipped along the ramp, plucking at Jones' sleeves. Overhead chill stars shone here and there, set in a totally opaque sky.

He was outside the police building.

At the terminus of the ramp stretched a concrete driveway: A few yards off to one side a heavy car stood gleaming, moist and metallic. The guard led him to it, held the door open, and then slid in beside him. The driver snapped on the headlights and the car moved onto the road.

The ride took half an hour. When the lights of a small town glowed weakly ahead, the massive car pulled from the rutted, uneven road, onto the shoulder. Among the weeds and debris the door was opened, and Jones was motioned out. The guard climbed back in wordlessly, slammed the door, and off roared the car, leaving Jones standing alone.

He began walking toward the lights of the town. Presently a partly-demolished gas station rose into view. Next came a roadside tavern, a bar, a closed-down grocery store and a drugstore. And, finally, a gigantic, crumbling hotel.

In the lobby of the hotel lounged a few men, most of them old, eyes vacant, without hope, smoking and waiting listlessly. Jones strode among them to the telephone booth beside the desk. Fishing a two-dollar piece from his pocket he rapidly dialed.

"I'm at a town called Laurel Heights," he told the individual who answered. "Come and pick me up."

After that he strolled restlessly around the lobby, gazing through the fly-specked window at the dark road beyond.

They would all be waiting, and he was impatient to begin. First came his speech and then the questions, but to him it was a formality; he had previewed long ago the grudging, reluctant acceptance of his conditions. They would protest but in the end they would give in; the publisher, first, and then General Patzech, and then Mrs. Winestock whose Montana estate provided the meeting place and whose money was to finance the Organization.

The name pleased him. They would call themselves Patriots United. Tillman, the industrialist, would suggest it, the legal arrangements had already been put through by David Sullivan, the councilman from New York. It had all been arranged, and it was going to work out as planned.

In front of the hotel appeared a slim needle-nosed projectile. Cautiously, the projectile came to rest against the curb; its lock fastened, and the hull slid back. Jones hurried from the lobby out into the night cold. Making his way to the projectile, he felt in the darkness for the opening.

"It's about time," he told the shapes half-visible in the gloom. "Are they all there?"

"Every one of them," the answer came. "All assembled and ready to listen. Got your seat-straps fastened?"

He had. The hull slid shut, snapped into place, and the lock released. An instant later the needle-nose raced forward into the sky. It headed west toward Montana and the Bitterroot Mountains; Jones was on his way.

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CHAPTER SEVEN


ON THE bulletin board of the post office, among the escaped-counterfeiter notices and information on rocket mail, hung a large white square, firmly taped in place behind protective glass:


WARNING TO THE PUBLIC!
MIGRATING PROTOZOA NOT
TO BE HARMED


The public is hereby advised that certain interplanetary migratory protozoa referred to as drifters have, by special act of the Supreme Council of the Federal World Government, been placed in the category of Wards of the State, and are not to the damaged, harmed, mutilated, destroyed, abused, tortured, or in any way subjected to cruel or unusual treatment with intent to injure or kill. Further, it is advised that Public Law 30d954A requires that any person or persons found so abusing members of the class of interplanetary migratory protozoa referred to as drifters will be punished by fine of not more than one hundred and ninety thousand Westbloc dollars and/or confinement to a forced labor camp for a period not to exceed twenty years. It is hereby stated by the Department of Public Health of the Federal World Government that the migratory protozoa referred to as drifters are benign, incomplete single-celled organisms incapable of affecting human safety or property, and if left alone will succumb to the natural temperature of the Earth's surface. It is further advised that any person witnessing the aforedescribed mistreatment of migratory protozoa referred to as drifters will be rewarded with the cash sum of ten thousand Westbloc dollars. Oct. 7 2002