"Philip Jose Farmer - Dayworld rebel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

plans, that you knew no one could break out of here. That. . . I can't believe that."
"You have to."
She stood up. "Interview is over."
He also rose, his long lean body straightening like ajackknife. "You showed me some of the
interrogation tapes. I don't know what this elixir is you asked me about. But it must be something
apocalyptically important. What is it?"
She paled slightly. "We believe you know full well what it's all about."
She called out, and the door swung open inward. Two big men, uniformed in green, stood in the
hail, looking through the doorway. Duncan walked toward them. Just as he was going past her, he
spoke out of the side of his mouth.
"Whatever it is, you're in danger just because you know about it. See you next Tuesday. . . if
you're still here."
There was no point in scaring her, because she was only carrying out her duties and had not been
brutal to him. But it gave him some satisfaction to threaten her. That was his only way to strike
back. Though it was a small way, it was better than none.
As he walked down the corridor, the two guards behind him, he wondered where his optimism came
from. Logically, he should have none. No one had ever, not ever, escaped from this place. Yet he
thought that he could do it.
He passed along the hall on the thick light-green carpet, seeing but not taking in the sea- and
mountainscapes the TV strips showed on Tuesday's walls. Near the end of the silent and empty
hallway, he was halted at a command from one of the guards. He stood while the other guard punched
the code on the button-panel by the door. The guard made no effort to keep him from seeing the
sequence of numbers punched. The code was changed once a day, and, sometimes, in the middle of the
afternoon. Moreover, a TV eye was on the wall opposite the door, and the human monitor downstairs
also had to punch in a code before the door would open.
The guard stepped back to allow Duncan to enter. Though


the escorts carried no weapons, they were skilled in martial arts. Even if a prisoner could
overcome two men, he still would be locked in. Both ends of the hall were closed with doors that
could only be opened through the same procedure that opened Duncan's door, and his every step
would be monitored.
"See you tomorrow," Duncan said, meaning next Tuesday.
They did not reply. Their orders were to utter only commands to him and, if he should try to give
them information of any kind, to shut him up. A kidney punch, a blow in the solar plexus, a chop
on the neck, or a kick in the testicles would stop him. That such treatment was illegal would not
bother them.
The door slid out from wall recesses behind him. He was in a room thirty feet long, twenty wide,
and ten high. Shadowless light had come on as he entered. The floor was thickly carpeted, and the
walls were lined with monitoring and entertainment strips. At the north end was the door to a
bathroom-toilet, the only unmonitored room. Or so he had been told. He suspected that he was
watched as closely there as elsewhere. Near that door was the bedroom entrance. That room held one
bed suspended by chains from the ceiling.
Along the west wall, starting from the north wall, was a row of seven tall grayish cylinders. Each
had a plaque on its base and a circular window three-quarters of the way to the top. Behind all
but two windows appeared faces and shoulders. They were motionless as stone. In a sense, they were
stone. The molecular motion in their bodies had been considerably slowed. Result: