"Whats It Like Out There by Edmond Hamilton" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

I didn't want to, but how are you going to say so? I went
up with her and looked and said it was nice. She opened a
big cupboard. It was full of neat rows of old magazines.
"They're all the old science fiction magazines he read
when he was a boy," she said. "He always saved them."
I took one out. It had a bright cover, with a space ship
on it, not like our rockets but a streamlined thing, and the
rings of Saturn in the background.
When I laid it down, Miss Graham took it up and put it
back carefully into its place in the row, as though somebody
was coming back who wouldn't like to find things out of
order.
She insisted on driving me back to Omaha, and out to the
airport. She seemed sorry to let me go, and I suppose it
was because I was the last real tie to Jim, and when I was
gone it was all over then for good.
I wondered if she'd get over it in time, and I guessed she
would. People do get over things. I supposed she'd marry
some other nice guy, and I wondered what they'd do with
Jim's things-with all those old magazines nobody was
ever coming back to read.
3-
I would never have stopped at Chicago at all if I could
have got out of it, for the last person I wanted to talk to
anybody about was Walter Millis. It would be too easy for
me to make a slip and let out stuff nobody was supposed to
know.
But Walters father had called me at the hospital, a couple
of times. The last time he called, he said he was having
Brock's parents come down from Wisconsin so they could
see me, too, so what could I do then but say, yes, I'd stop.
But I didn't like it at all, and I knew I'd have to be careful.
Mr. Millis was waiting at the airport and shook hands
with me and said what a big favor I was doing them all, and
how he appreciated my stopping when I must be anxious to
get back to my own home and parents.
"That's all right," I said. "My dad and mother came out to
the hospital to see me when I first got back."
He was a big, fine-looking important sort of man, with a
little bit of the stuffed shirt about him, I thought. He seemed
friendly enough, but I got the feeling he was looking at me
and wondering why I'd come back and his son Walter
hadn't. Well, I couldn't blame him for that.
His car was waiting, a big car with a driver, and we
started north through the city. Mr, Millis pointed out a few
things to me to make conversation, especially a big atomic-
power station we passed.
"It's only one of thousands, strung all over the world," he
said. "They're going to transform our whole economy. This
Martian uranium will be a big thing, Sergeant."