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

Kaminski gathered up his package and the two men obediently followed her. The bedroom was dark and warm. In his bassinet the baby lay soundly sleeping, one hand raised to his mouth, knees drawn up. Kaminski stood for a time, hands on the railing of the bassinet. The only sound was the baby's muted rasp and the continual click of the robot watcher.

"He wasn't really hungry," Nina said. "It had fed him." She indicated the watcher. "He just missed me."

Kaminski started to reach dawn toward the baby, then changed his mind. "He's healthy-looking," he said awkwardly. "Looks a lot like you, Doug. He has your forehead. But he's got Nina's hair."

"Yes," Cussick agreed. "He's going to have nice hair."

"What color eyes?"

"Blue. Like Nina. The perfect human being: my powerful intellect and her beauty." He put his arm around his wife and held her tight.

Chewing his lip, Kaminski said half aloud: "I wonder what the world's going to be like, when he grows up. I wonder if he'll be running through ruins with a gun and an armband . . . chanting a slogan."

Abruptly, Nina turned and left the bedroom. When they followed they found her standing at the living room door, her coat on, purse under her arm, pulling on her gloves with rapid, jerky motions.

"Ready?" she demanded, in a clipped voice. With her sharp toe she kicked open the hall door. "Then let's go. Well pick up this girl of Max's, and get under way."

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CHAPTER NINE


THE GIRL was waiting demurely at the Security annex. Kaminski ordered the taxi to pull up at the darkened runway; he leaped out and strode up the gloomy walk, toward the long concrete building. After a short interval he returned with a small, solemn figure. By now he had managed to get her name.

"Tyler," he muttered, helping her into the taxi, "this is Doug and Nina Cussick." Indicating the girl, he finished; "Tyler Fleming."

"Hello," Tyler said huskily, tossing her head back and smiling shyly around at them. She had large dark eyes and short-cropped jet-black hair. Her skin was smooth and faintly tanned. She was slender, almost thin, body very young and unformed under her simple evening dress.

Nina examined her critically and said: "I've seen you around. Aren't you a Security employee?"

"I'm in research," Tyler answered, in an almost inaudible whisper. "I've only been with Security a few months."

"You'll get along," Nina observed, signalling the taxi to rise. In a moment they were on their way up. Irritably, Nina stabbed down on the high-velocity stud mounted by her armrest. "Its almost one o'clock," she explained. "If we don't hurry, we won't see anything."

"See?" Cussick echoed apprehensively.

At Nina's direction, the taxi let them off in the North-beach section of San Francisco. Cussick satisfied the robot meter with ninety dollars in change, and the taxi shot off. To their right was Columbus Avenue and its notorious rows of bars and dives and Cabarets and blackmarket restaurants. People were out roaming the streets in great numbers; the sky overhead was choked with inter-city taxis setting down and taking off. Multicolored signs winked; on every side glared chattering, flickering displays.

Seeing where Nina had brought them, Cussick felt a pang of dismay. He knew she had been going to San Francisco; police reports had mentioned her presence in the Northbeach surveillance area. But he had assumed it was clandestine, a covert protest; he hadn't expected her to bring him along. Nina was already heading purposefully toward the descending stairs of a subsurface bar; she seemed to know exactly where she was going.

Catching up with her, he demanded: "You sure you want to do this?"

Nina halted. "Do what?"

"This is one area I wish they had demolished. Too bad the bombs didn't finish it once and for all."