"C M Kornbluth - Time Bum" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

"Where's Esperanto?" he demanded.



"Esperanto isn't anywhere. It's an artificial language. I played around with it a little once. It was supposed
to end war and all sorts of things. Some people called it the language of the future." Her voice was
tremulous.



Walter said, "I'm going to get to the bottom of this."



He saw Clurg go into the neighborhood movie for the matinee. That gave him about three hours.



Walter hurried to the Curran bungalow, remembered to slow down and tried hard to look casual as he
unlocked the door and went in. There wouldn't be any troubleтАФhe was a good citizen, known and
respectedтАФhe could let himself into a tenant's house and wait for him to talk about business if he wanted
to.
 He tried not to think of what people would think if he should be caught rifling Clurg's luggage, as he
intended to do. He had brought along an assortment of luggage keys. Surprised by his own ingenuity, he
had got them at a locksmith's by saying his own key was lost and he didn't want to haul a heavy packed
bag downtown.



But he didn't need the keys. In the bedroom closet the two suitcases stood, unlocked.



There was nothing in the first except uniformly new clothes, bought locally at good shops. The second
was full of the same. Going through a rather extreme sports jacket, Walter found a wad of paper in the
breast pocket. It was a newspaper page. A number had been penciled on a margin; apparently the sheet
had been torn out and stuck into the pocket and forgotten. The dateline on the paper was July 18th,
2403.



Walter had some trouble reading the stories at first, but found it was easy enough if he read them aloud
and listened to his voice.



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