"Henry Kuttner - The Time Axis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

My head ached from the sudden motion. Dawn made the sky light outside and brimmed the room with a
clear gray luminous pallor. I sat there holding my head in both hands and knowingтАФknowingтАФthat


file:///F|/rah/Henry%20Kuttner/Kuttner%20-%20The%20Time%20Axis%20UC.txt (3 of 80) [2/4/03 10:17:20 PM]
 file:///F|/rah/Henry%20Kuttner/Kuttner%20-%20The%20Time%20Axis%20UC.txt

somewhere in the city an instant ago a man had been killed.

There was no shadow of doubt in my mind. I was as sure as if I had had that strange sensation a
hundred times before and each time seen a man die as it burst into a nova-glow inside me.

I wanted to go back to sleep and pretend it had been a dream. But I knew I couldn't. I dragged
myself out of bed and into my clothes. I took my aching head and jangled nerves down into the
street and found a yawning taxi-driver.

You see, I even knew where the dead man would be found. It was unthinkable that I should go there
looking for himтАФbut I went. And I found him. He was lying huddled against the rim of a fountain in
a little square not far from the place where I'd last seen myтАФmy thiefтАФof the night before
vanishing with that disquieting, smooth swiftness in the moonlight.

The dead man was an Indian, probably a beggar. I stood

there in the deserted square, looking down at him, hearing the early morning traffic moving
noisily past, knowing someone would find us here together at any moment. I had never seen a victim
of the* burn-death before but I knew I looked at one now. It wasn't a real burn, properly
speaking. Friction, I though, had done it. The eroded skin made^me think of something, and I
looked at my own palm.

I was standing there, staring from my burned hand to the dead man and then back again, whenтАФit
happened again.

The bursting nova of pure radiance flared into, violence somewhere near the pit of my stomach.
Vitality poured through my veins. ...

I sold the series to AP as usual. There had been five of the murders in Rio before I got my idea
about putting an end to them and by then the stories had begun to hit the States papers, some of
them running my picture along with the sensational stuff about the deaths, and my uncanny ability
at locating the bodies.

Looking back now, I suppose the only reason they didn't arrest me for murder was that they
couldn't figure out how Fd done it. Lucidly my hand had healed before the police and the papers
began to connect me so tightly with the deaths.

After the fifth murder I got a reservation for NQSV Jfttrk. I had come to the conclusion that if I
left Rio the murders would stopтАФin Rio. I thought they might begin again ifli New York. I had to
find out, you see. By then I was in pretty bad shape, for the best of reasonsтАФor the worst.
Any.hdw, I went back.