"Philip Jose Farmer - The Image Of The Beast" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

Image of the Beast




CHAPTER 1

Green milk curdled.
Smoke rose to the light, and smoke and light fused to become
green milk. The
milk fissioned to become smoke and darkness above. As below.
Smog was outside, and smog was inside.
Green and sour.
The green and sour odor and taste came not only from the smog,
which had
forced its tendrils into the air-conditioned building, nor from the
tobacco
plumes in the room. It came from memory of what he had seen that
morning and
anticipation of what he would see within the next few minutes.
The film room of the Los Angeles Police Department was darker
than Herald
Childe had ever seen it. The beam of light from the projection booth
usually
tended to make gray what otherwise would have been black. But the
cigar and
cigarette smoke, the smog, and the mood of the viewers, blackened
everything.
Even the silver light from the screen seemed to pull light in instead
of casting
it back at the viewers.
Where the beam overhead struck the tobacco fumes, green milk
formed and
curdled and soured. So thought Herald Childe. The image was unforced.
The worst
smog in history was smothering Los Angeles and Orange counties. Not a
mouse of a
wind had stirred for a day and a night and a day and a night. On the
third day,
it seemed that this condition might go on and on.
The smog. He could now forget the smog.
Spread-eagled on the screen was his partner (possibly ex-
partner). The
wine-red draperies behind him glowed, and Matthew Colben's face,
normally as red
as Chianti half-diluted with water, was now the color of a
transparent plastic
bag bulging with wine.
The camera swung away to show the rest of his body and some of
the room. He