"Henry Kuttner - Shock UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

'Rationalize it away,' Gregg advised. 'I'm going to.' He looked again at the wall. 'That hole's getting pretty big. Wonder if I could step through it?' He walked close to the valve. The blue wall was still there, and a blue floor at a slightly lower level than his own gray carpet. A pungent, pleasant breatii of air floated in from die unknown, oddly reassuring.

'Better not,' MacPherson said. 'It might close up on you.'

For answer Gregg vanished into die kitchen and returned with a length of thin clothesline. He made a loop around his waist, handed the other end to MacPherson, and crushed out his cigarette in a convenient tray.

'It won't close till Halison gets back. Or anyway it won't close too fast. I hope. Sing out if you see it starting to shut, though, Mac. I'll come diving back headfirst.'

'Crazy fool,' MacPherson said.

Gregg, rather pale around the lips, stepped into the future. The valve was more tiian four feet in diameter by now, its lower edge two feet from the carpet. Gregg had to duck. He straightened up, remembering to breathe, and looked back through the hole into MacPherson's white face.

'It's O.K.,' he said.

'What's over there?'

Gregg flattened himself against the blue wall. The floor felt soft under his feet. The four-foot circle was like a cut-out disk, an easel set up in empty air, a film process shot. He could see MacPherson there, and his own room.

But he was in another room now, large, lit with a cool radiant glow, and utterly different from anything he had ever seen before.

The windows drew his attention first, oval, tall openings in two of the blue walls, transparent in the center and fading around the edges to translucence and then azure opaqueness. Through them he glimpsed lights, colored lights dial moved. He took a step forward and hesitated, looking back to where MacPherson waited.

'What's it like?'

Til see,' Gregg said, and circled the valve. It was invisible from the other side. Perhaps light rays were bent around it. He couldn't tell. A little frightened, he returned briefly to glimpse MacPherson again, and, relieved, continued his explorations.

The room was about diirty feet square, with a high-domed room, and the lighting source was at first difficult to discover. Everydiing in die room had a slight glow. Absorption of sun-

light, Gregg thought, like luminous paint. It seemed effective.

There wasn't much to see. There were low couches, functional-looking padded chairs, comfortable and pastel-tinted, and a few rubbery tables. A square glassy block as large as a small overnight bag, rubber in texture, was on the blue floor. Gregg could not make out its purpose. When he picked it up gingerly, colors played phosphorescently for a few moments within it.

There was a book on one of the tables, and he pouched this for future reference. MacPherson hailed him.

'Manning? O.K. in there?'

'Yeah. Just a minute.'

Where were the doors? Gregg grinned wryly. He was slightly handicapped by lacking even the basic technological "knowledge for this unknown world. The doors might be activated by pressure, light, or sound. Or even odor, for all he knew. A brief inspection could tell him nothing. But he was worried about the valve. If it closedЧЧЧ

Well, no great harm would be done, Gregg supposed., This future world was peopled by humans sufficiently similar to himself. And they'd have enough intelligence to return him to his own time-sectorЧMalison's appearance proved that. Nevertheless, Gregg preferred to have an open exit.

He went to the nearest window and looked out. The constellations in the purple sky had changed slightly, not much, in a few thousand years. The rainbow lights darted here and there. Aircraft. Beneath him, the dark masses of buildings were dimly visible in the shadow. There was no moon. A few towers rose to his own height, and he could make out the rounded silhouettes of their summits.

One of the lights swept toward him. Before Gregg could draw back he glimpsed a small shipЧantigravity, he thoughtЧwith a boy and a girl in the open cockpit. There was neither propeller nor wing structure. The pair resembled Halison in their large craniums and pinched faces, though both had hair on their heads. They, too, wore togalike garments.

And they did not seem strange, somehow. There was noЧ alienage. The girl was laughing, and, despite her bulging forehead and meager features, Gregg thought her strangely attractive. Certainly there was no harm in these people. The vague fears of a coldly, ruthlessly inhuman superrace went glimmering.

They glided past, not twenty feet away, looking straight at GreggЧand did not see him. Astonished, the physicist reached out to touch the smooth, slightly warmish surface of the pane. Odd!