"Henry Kuttner - Mutant (SS Collection) UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

"I... well, I haven't asked her."
"Yeah," Reilly said with an air of triumph.
"I don't need to. I know her well enough. And... well, I'm a Baldy myself."
"I know you are," Reilly said. "For all I know, you may be reading my mind now." He hesitated. "Get out of my
house. I like my privacy. We'll meet at dawn tomorrow, if that's satisfactory with you. Now get out." He seemed to have something on his mind, some ancient memory, perhaps, that he didn't wish exposed.
Burkhalter nobly resisted the temptation. "No Baldy would read-"
"Go on, get out!"
"Listen! You wouldn't have a chance in a duel with me!"
"Do you know how many notches I've got?" Reilly asked.
"Ever dueled a Baldy?"
"I'll cut the notch deeper tomorrow. Get out, d'you hear?"
Burkhalter, biting his lips, said, "Man, don't you realize that in a duel I could read your mind?"
"I don't care ... what?"
"I'd be half a jump ahead of you. No matter how instinctive your actions would be, you'd know them a split second ahead of time in your mind. And I'd know all your tricks and weaknesses, too. Your technique would be an open book to me. Whatever you thought of-"
"No." Reilly shook his head. "Oh, no. You're smart, but it's a phony set-up."
Burkhalter hesitated, decided, and swung about, pushing a chair out of the way. "Take out your dagger," he said. "Leave the sheath snapped on; I'll show you what I mean."
Reilly's eyes widened. "If you want it now-"
"I don't." Burkhalter shoved another chair away. He un-clipped his dagger, sheath and all, from his belt, and made sure the little safety clip was in place. "We've room enough here. Come on."
Scowling, Reilly took out his own dagger, held it awkwardly, baffled by the sheath, and then suddenly feinted forward. But Burkhalter wasn't there; he had anticipated, and his own leather sheath slid up Reilly's belly.
"That," Burkhalter said, "would have ended the fight."
For answer Reilly smashed a hard dagger-blow down, curving at the last moment into a throat-cutting slash. Burkhalter's free hand was already at his throat; his other hand, with the sheathed dagger, tapped Reilly twice over the heart. The freckles stood out boldly against the pallor of the larger man's face. But he was not yet ready to concede. He tried a few more passes, clever, well-trained cuts, and they failed, because Burkhalter had anticipated them. His left hand invariably
I
covered the spot where Reilly had aimed, and which he never struck.
Slowly Reilly let his arm fall. He moistened his lips and swallowed. Burkhalter busied himself reclipping his dagger in place.
"Burkhalter," Reilly said, "you're a devil."
"Far from it. I'm just afraid to take a chance. Do you really think being a Baldy is a snap?"
"But, if you can read minds-"
"How long do you think I'd last if I did any dueling? It would be too much of a set-up. Nobody would stand for it, and I'd end up dead. I can't duel, because it'd be murder, and people would know it was murder. I've taken a lot of cracks, swallowed a lot of insults, for just that reason. Now, if you like, I'll swallow another and apologize. I'll admit anything you say. But I can't duel with you, Reilly."
"No, I can see that. And-I'm glad you came over." Reilly was still white. "I'd have walked right into a set-up."
"Not my set-up," Burkhalter said. "I wouldn't have dueled. Baldies aren't so lucky, you know. They've got handicaps- like this. That's why they can't afford to take chances and antagonize people, and why we never read minds, unless we're asked to do so."
"It makes sense. More or less." Reilly hesitated. "Look, I withdraw that challenge. O.K.?"
"Thanks," Burkhalter, said, putting out his hand. It was taken rather reluctantly. "We'll leave it at that, eh?"
"Right." But Reilly was still anxious to get his guest out of the house.
Burkhalter walked back to the Publishing Center and whistled tunelessly. He could tell Ethel now; in fact, he had to, for secrets between them would have broken up the completeness of their telepathic intimacy. It was not that their minds lay bare to each other, it was, rather, that any barrier could be sensed by the other, and the perfect rapport wouldn't have been so perfect. Curiously, despite this utter intimacy, husband and wife managed to respect one another's privacy.
Ethel might be somewhat distressed, but the trouble had blown over, and, besides, she was a Baldy too. Not that she looked it, with her wig of fluffy chestnut hair and those long, curving lashes. But her parents had lived east of Seattle during , the Blowup, and afterward, too, before the hard radiation's effects had been thoroughly studied.
The snow-wind blew down over Modoc and fled southward
along the Utah Valley. Burkhalter wished he was in his copter, alone in the blue emptiness of the sky. There was a quiet, strange peace up there that no Baldy ever quite achieved on the earth's surface, except in the depths of a wilderness. Stray fragments of thoughts were always flying about, subsensory, but like the almost-unheard whisper of a needle on a phonograph record, never ceasing. That, certainly, was why almost all Baldies loved to fly and were expert pilots. The high waste deserts of the air were their blue hermitages.
Still, he was in Modoc now, and overdue for his interview with Quayle. Burkhalter hastened his steps. In the main hall he met Moon, said briefly and cryptically that he'd taken care of the duel, and passed on, leaving the fat man to stare a question after him. The only visor call was from Ethel; the playback said she was worried about Al, and would Burkhalter check with the school. Well, he had already done so-unless the boy had managed to get into more trouble since then. Burkhalter put in a call and reassured himself. Al was as yet unchanged.
He found Quayle in the same private solarium, and thirsty. Burkhalter ordered a couple of dramzowies sent up, since he had no objection to loosening Quayle's inhibitions. The gray-haired author was immersed in a sectional historical globe-map, illuminating each epochal layer in turn as he searched back through time.
"Watch this," he said, running his hand along the row of buttons. "See how the German border fluctuates? And Portugal. Notice its zone of influence? Now-" The zone shrank steadily from 1600 on, while other countries shot out radiating lines and assumed sea power.
Burkhalter sipped his dramzowie. "Not much of that now."
"No, since... what's the matter?"
"How do you mean?"
"You look shot."
"I didn't know I showed it," Burkhalter said wryly. "I just finagled my way out of a duel."
"That's one custom I never saw much sense to," Quayle said. "What happened? Since when can you finagle out?"
Burkhalter explained, and the writer took a drink and snorted. "What a spot for you. Being a Baldy isn't such an advantage after all, I guess."
"It has distinct disadvantages at times." On impulse Burkhalter mentioned his son. "You see my point, eh? I don't
know, really, what standards to apply to a young Baldy. He is a mutation, after all. And the telepathic mutation hasn't had time to work out yet. We can't rig up controls, because guinea pigs and rabbits won't breed telepaths. That's been tried, you know. And-well, the child of a Baldy needs very special training so he can cope with his ultimate maturity."
"You seem to have adjusted well enough."