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

But there were no lights in the other buildings. The windows must be one-way only, to insure privacy. You could see out, but not in.

'Manning!'

Gregg turned hurriedly, re-coiling the rope as he returned to the valve. MacPherson's worried frown greeted him.

T wish you'd come back. I'm getting jittery.'

'All right,' Gregg said amiably, and crawled through the hole. 'But there's no danger. I bagged a book. Here's some very post-incunabula for you!' He drew the volume from his pocket.

MacPherson took it but didn't open it immediately. His pale eyes were on Gregg's.

'What did you find?'

Gregg went into detail. 'Quite remarkable in its suggestions you know. A tiny slice out of the future. It didn't seem so strange when I was in there, but now it seems funny. My drink's warm. Another?'

'No. Oh, wellЧyes. Short.'

MacPherson examined the book while Gregg went into the kitchen. Once he glanced up at the valve. It was a little larger, he thought. Not much. Perhaps it had nearly reached its maximum.

Gregg came back. 'Can you read it? No? Well, I expected that. Halison said he had to learn our language. I wonder what he's looking forЧin his past?'

'I wonder who Ranil-Mens is.'

'I'd like to meet him. Thank God I've got training. If I can get HalisonЧor somebodyЧto explain things to me, I ought to be able to grasp the rudiments of future technology. What a chance, Mac!'

'If he's willing.'

'You didn't meet him,' Gregg said. 'He was friendly, even though he did hypnotize me. What's that?' He seized the book to examine a picture.

'Octopus,' MacPherson suggested.

'Chart. I wonder. It looks almost like an atomic structure, but it's no compound I've ever run into. I wish I could read these infernal wiggles. They look like a combination of Burmese and Pitman. Even the numerical system's different from the Arabic. A whole treasure chest out here, and no key!'

'Hm-m-m. Could be. It still looks a bit dangerous to me.'

Gregg eyed MacPherson. 'I don't think so. There's no reason at all for anticipating trouble. Dime-novel stuff.'

'What is life but a dime novel?' MacPherson asked moodily, rather bottle-dizzy from the unaccustomed liquor.

'That's your way of looking at it. And the way you live it.' Gregg's tone was unpleasant, chiefly because he was allergic to MacPherson's casually hopeless philosophy. 'Try being logical for a change. The race is advancing, in spite of dictators and professional reformers. The industrial revolution started speeding up social mutations. Natural mutations tie in with that. It's progressive. In the next five hundred years we'll have covered as

much ground as we did in the last ten thousand. A snowball rolling downhill.'

'So what?1

'So the ultimate result is logic,' Gregg said, 'and that doesn't mean a cold-blooded inhuman logic, either. Not when it's human logic. It takes emotions and psychology into account. It will, that is. There won't be Great Brains waiting to conquer universes, or enslaving the remnants of humans. We've seen that. HalisonЧhe was willing to talk, but in too much of a hurry just then. He said he'd explain later.'

'All I know is that there's a hole in the wall,' MacPherson said. 'It's one of those things that doesn't happen. Now it's happened. Sorry I've got my wind up.'