"Gordon R. Dickson - Of The People" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

nonetheless and give me the keys." He got out and gave me the keys and I
left him standing there.
I got in the cab and drove it off through the nightlit downtown streets, and
I kissed the city good-by as I went. I blew a kiss to the grain exhange and a
kiss to the stockyards. And a kiss to every one of the fourteen offices in the
city that knew me each under a different title as head of a different
business. You've got to get along without me now, city and people, I said,
because I'm not coming back, no more, no more.
I drove out of downtown and out past Longview Acres and past Manor
Acres and past Sherman Hills and I blew them all a kiss, too. Enjoy your
homes, you people, I told them, because they're good homes тАУ not the
best I could have done you by a damn sight, but better than you'll see
elsewhere in a long time, and your money's worth. Enjoy your homes and
don't remember me.
I drove out to the airport and there I left the cab. It was a good airport. I'd
laid it out myself and I knew. It was a good airport and I got eighteen days
of good hard work out of the job. I got myself so lovely and tired doing it I
was able to go out to the bars and sit there having half a dozen drinks тАУ
before the urge to talk to the people around me became unbearable and I
had to get up and go home.
There were planes on the field. A good handful of them. I went in and
talked to one of the clerks. "Mr. Crossman!" he said, when he saw me.
"Get me a plane," I said. "Get me a plane headed east and then forget I
was in tonight."
He did; and I went. I flew to New York and changed planes and flew to
London; and changed again and carne in by jet to Bombay.
By the time I reached Bombay, my mind was made up for good, and I
went through the city as if it were a dream of buildings and people and no
more. I went through the town and out of the town and I hit the road north,
walking. And as I walked, I took off my coat and my tie. And I opened my
collar to the open air and I started my trek.
 Illustration by RICK BRYANT


I was six weeks walking it. I remember little bits and pieces of things
along the way тАУ mainly faces, and mainly the faces of the children, for they
aren't afraid when they're young. They'd come up to me and run alongside,
trying to match the strides I'd take, and after a while they'd get tired and
drop back тАУ but there were always others along the way. And there were
adults, too, men and women, but when they got close they'd take one look
at my face and go away again. There was only one who spoke to me in all
that trip, and that was a tall, dark brown man in some kind of uniform. He
spoke to me in English and I answered him in dialect. He was scared to the
marrow of his bones, for after he spoke I could hear the little grinding of his
teeth in the silence as he tried to keep them from chattering. But I
answered him kindly, and told him I had business in the north that was
nobody's business but my own. And when he still would not move тАУ he was
well over six feet and nearly as tall as I тАУ I opened my right hand beneath
his nose and showed him himself, small and weak as a caterpillar in the
palm of it. And he fell out of my path as if his legs had all the strength gone