"Colin Kapp - The Dark Mind - The Transfinite Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kapp Colin)

The Dark Mind / The Transfinite Man
Colin Kapp, 1965
ONE

Failway Terminal cut across the old sector of the city like an ugly red house-brick thrown by a vandal on
to a Lilliputian town. Almost a square mile of the old town had been obliterated to make room for the
monstrous hundred-storied hulk of architectural impotence which was the Terminal building. Streets and
parks alike ended with a plaintive suddenness short of this monumental reminder that money can buy
anything. Its shadow secured a shroud of almost permanent gloom across the tenements still cringing
between it and the river. Failway Terminal, thought Ivan Dalroi, was a headache from any point of view.

A ground-cab set him down at the main entrance, and he lingered for a while watching the faces of the
trippers and the sensation seekers who flocked to the Terminal in search of the pleasures only Failway
could provide. The sight made him slightly sick. Failway was strictly impartial: the customers got what
they paid for тАФ pleasures simple, exciting, exotic or erotic according to their wishes. The trouble was
that people tended to graduate ...

The girl at the reception desk took his card and scanned it with disfavour.

"You have an appointment?"

"No," said Dalroi. "Only people who expect to live a long time make appointments. I want to speak to
Peter Madden."

"Would you care to state the nature of your business?"

"Right now it hasn't got a name, but unless I get a few good answers I shall probably call it murder."

The girl dialled a number and spoke briefly into an acoustic chamber. Then she turned back to Dalroi.

"Mr. Madden was expecting you to call. He will see you immediately."

Dalroi scowled. Only a selected few knew he was planning a visit to Failway Terminal. Only one other
person knew his purpose. Somebody was guessing, or ... A sudden stab of panic clawed at his vitals and
he rejected it savagely.

Peter Madden was a mild-seeming man with a careful, suave calm born more of rigid self-discipline than
inner content. The man's balance and control was almost perfect, thought Dalroi, but the tell-tale top line
frown betrayed the power and the conflict locked within the skull. Peter Madden was not a man to be
crossed lightly.

"Failway Public Relations at your disposal, Mr. Dalroi. We aim to serve you."

"I doubt it!" said Dalroi. "I'm not exactly increasing the good-will of the establishment."

Madden looked him firmly in the eyes, a slight smile on his lips, and motioned him into a chair. "Knowing
your reputation for trouble, I take it this isn't a social visit?"

"If you were expecting me, you know damn well it isn't. For the record I'll pretend you don't know who I
am or why I'm here." He searched carefully around the room for the concealed microphones he knew