"Henry Kuttner - The Lion and the Unicorn UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

"Catch this." Marian formed mental concepts involving sight, touch and taste. Alexa chimed in with the smell of' breadfruit. Line had his own arbitrary standards for comparisons, and within a second had assimilated the absolute meaning; he would recognize a breadfruit from now on. Marian threw a quick mental question. Line answered.
To town (Darryl McNey) by window (ten minutes past)
"A bit confused," Marian said, "but I get the idea. He ought to be back soon. I'm in the mood for a swim. Suppose I fix some sandwiches?"
"Swell," Alexa said. "I'll help. Line knows more about catching trout than anybody I've ever seen, except he doesn't know what a dry fly is."
"I just aim to catch fish," Line said. "Enough to eat. Many a time I had to fish through holes in the ice to keep from being hungry."
Later, stretching his brown, hard body on the sandy bank of the pool upstream, he luxuriated in the warm sunlight and watched Alexa. Slim and attractive in white shorts and bathing cap, she inexpertly practiced casting, while McNey, pipe in his mouth, worked a likely-looking spot under an overhang of branches that brushed the water. Marian placidly ate sandwiches and watched the activities of a community of ants with considerable interest. The deep, unspoken comradeship of the family and the race was intangibly in the air, a bond that reached out, touched Line, and drew him into its friendly center. This is it, he thought. 1 belong here. And Alexa's mind answered him with quiet confidence: You are one of Us.
The months passed very quickly for Line, broken by occasional visits from Dave Barton, whose manner grew increasingly more troubled, and by the green that covered tree and brush, ground and vine, as spring gave place to summer, and summer drew toward a not-distant autumn. He seldom thought of the Hedgehounds now. There was a sort of tacit acceptance of the situation among the little group; he felt, without actually bringing the realization consciously to mind, that Alexa knew a great deal about his past, and that she would not bring up the matter of Cassie unless he did. That she was beginning to love him he did not doubt. Nor did he doubt much that he loved her. After all, Alexa was his kind, as Cassie never had been.
But he dreamed of Cassie, nevertheless. Sometimes he felt loneliness, even among his own people. At such times he was anxious to finish his telepathic training and join Barton's fight against the paranoids. Barton was eager to enlist Line, but he warned against the danger of moving too soon. "The paranoids aren't fools, Line," he said. "We mustn't underestimate them. I've lived this long simply because I'm a trained big-game hunter. My reactions are just a bit faster than theirs, and I always try to maneuver them in a position where telepathy can't help them. If a paranoid's at the bottom of a well, he may read your intention of dropping a load of bricks on his head-but he can't do a lot about it." "Any news about Callahan?" McNey asked. "No word for months. There's some plan-maybe a big push in the propaganda field, maybe assassinations of key technologists. I don't know what. I've read no minds that knew the right answers. But I think something's going to break soon; I've found out that much. -We've got to be ready for it. We've got to break their code-or get one of our own. The same tune, Darryl."
"I know," McNey said. He stared out at the empty blue sky. "There isn't much I can say now, or even think. The same tune, all right."
"But you haven't failed? In a few weeks you're due back at Niagara."
Line said, "Look, about this code. I was thinking, the Hedgehounds have got a sort of code. Like this." He imitated a few bird and animal calls. "We know what they mean but nobody else knows."
"Hedgehounds aren't telepaths. If they were, your code wouldn't stay a secret long."
"Guess you're right. I'd like to take a crack at the paranoids, though."
"You'll have your chance," Barton said. "But, meanwhile, it's DarryFs job to find us a new weapon."
McNey said wearily, "I know all about that. No more pep talks, Dave, please."
Barton stood up, scowling. "I've a job to do down south. I'll see you when I get back, Darryl. Meanwhile, take care of yourself. If this business-whatever it is-should break soon, don't run any risks. You're vital to Us, much more so than I am."
With a nod to Line he went out. McNey stared at nothing. Line hesitated, sent out a querying thought, and met abstracted rebuff. He went downstairs.
He couldn't find Alexa. Finally he went out into the gardens, working his way toward the brook. A flash of color caught his eye, and he headed for it.
Alexa was sitting on a rock, her flimsy playsuit unzipped to let the slight breeze cool her. The heat was so intense that she had removed her wig, and her bald head was shiny and incongruous, incompatible with her artificial lashes and eyebrows. It was the first time Line had ever seen her wigless.
Instantly, at his thought, she swung about and began to replace the wig. But her arm stopped in arrested motion. She looked at him, half questionably, and then with pain and growing understanding in her eyes.
"Put it on, Alexa," Line said.
She watched him steadily. "What for-now?"
"I... it doesn't-"
Alexa shrugged and slipped the headpiece into place. "That was ... strange," she said, deliberately speaking aloud as if she did not want to let her mind slip back into the channels of telepathic intimacy where hurt can strike so unerringly. "I'm so used myself to Baldies being-bald. I never thought before the sight could be-" She did not finish aloud. After a moment she said, "You must have been very unhappy among the Hedgehounds, Line. Even more unhappy than you realize. If you've been conditioned against the sight of baldness to ... to that extent-"
"It wasn't," Line denied futilely. "I didn't... you shouldn't think-"
"It's all right. You can't help reactions as deeply rooted as that. Some day standards of beauty will change. Hairlessness will be lovely. Today it isn't, certainly not to a man with
your psychological background. You must have been made to feel very keenly that you were inferior because of your baldness-"
Line stood there awkwardly, unable to deny the thought " that had sprung so vividly into his mind, burning with shame I and dismay at the knowledge that she had seen as clearly as himself the ugly picture of her baldness in his thought. As if he had held up a distorting mirror to her face and said aloud, "This is the way you look to me." As if he had slapped her gratuitously across the cheek with the taunt of her-abnormality.
"Never mind," Alexa said, a little shakily, smiling. "You can't help it if baldness disg ... distresses you. Forget it. It isn't as if we were m-married or... anything."
They looked at each other in silence. Their minds touched and sprang apart and then touched again, tentatively, with light thoughts that leaped from point to point as gingerly as if the ideas were ice-floes that might sink beneath the full weight of conscious focus.
/ thought I loved you ... perhaps I did .. . yes, I too .. . but now there can't be . . . (sudden, rebellious denial) ... no, it's true, there can't ever be Tightness between us... not as if we were ordinary people... we'd always remember that picture, how I looked (abrupt sheering off from the memory) . . . (agonized repudiation of it) . . . no, couldn't help that.. . always between MS ... rooted too deeply ... and anyhow, Cos-(sudden closing off of both minds at once, before even the thought-image had time to form.)
Alexa stood up. "I'm going into town," she said. "Marian's at the hairdresser's. I... I'll get a wave or something."
He looked at her helplessly, half reluctant to let her go, though he knew as well as she how much had been discussed and weighed and discarded in the past moment of voiceless speech.
"Gopd-by, Alexa," he said.
"Good-by, Line."
Line stood for a long time watching the path, even after she had gone. He would have to leave. He didn't belong here. Even if nearness to Alexa were possible after this, he knew he could not stay. They were-abnormal. He would be seeing the baldness, the contemptible, laughable baldness he had hated in himself, more clearly now than the wigs
they wore. Somehow until this moment he had never fully realized-
Well, he couldn't go without telling Darryl. Slowly, dragging his feet a little, he turned back toward the house. When he came to the side lawn he sent out an inexpert, querying thought.
Something answered him from the cellar-laboratory, a queer, strange, disturbing vibration that clung briefly to his mind and then pulled away. It wasn't McNey. It was-an intruder. Line went down the cellar steps. At the bottom he paused, trying to sort the tangled confusion in his mind as he thrust out exploratory mental fingers. The door was open. McNey was lying on the floor, his mind blanked, blood seeping from a red stain on his side. The intruder? Who-
Sergei Callahan. Where-Hidden. And armed.
So am 1, Line thought, his dagger springing into his hand. Telepathically you are untrained. In a fight you can't win. That was probably true. Telepathy took the place of prescience with the Baldies. Any Baldy could outguess and conquer a non-Baldy, and Line was not yet thoroughly trained in the use of the telepathic function.
He probed awkwardly. And, suddenly, he knew where Callahan was.
Behind the door. Where he could strike Line in the back when the boy entered the laboratory. He had not expected the untrained Baldy to discover the ambush until too late, and even as Line realized the situation, Callahan made a move to spring out.
All Line's weight smashed against the panel, slamming the door back against the wall. Callahan was caught. Pressed helplessly between the two metal planes-door and wall-he tried to brace himself, to wriggle free. His hand, gripping a dagger, snaked out. Line dropped his own weapon, put his back against the door, and planted his feet more firmly. The door frame gave him good purchase. Veins stood out on his forehead as he ground, crushed, drove the door back with all his strength.
What had Dave Barton said once? "Kill them with machines-" This was a machine-one of the oldest. The lever.
Suddenly Callahan began to scream. His agonized thought begged for mercy. In a moment his strength would fail, he pleaded. "Don't-don't crush me!"
His strength failed.
Line's heavy shoulders surged. There was one frightful mental scream from Callahan, more agonizing than the audible sound he made, Bnd Line let the door swing slowly away from the wall. A body collapsed with its movement. Line picked up his dagger, used it efficiently, and then turned to McNey.
There was a puddle of blood on the floor, but McNey still lived. Callahan had not had time to finish his task.
Line became busy administering first aid.