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

of a woman's spare, straight figure rising almost apologetically from a desk as I entered. I knew
her by that air of faint apology no less than by her outline against the light.

"Dr. Essenl" I said. And I was aware then of my first feeling of respect for this job, whatever it
was. You don't get two people like Letta Essen and Ira De Kalb under the same roof for anything
trivial.

I knew Dr. Essen. I'd interviewed her twice, right after Hiroshima, about the work she'd done with
Meitner and Frisch in establishing the nuclear liquid-drop concept of atomic fission. I wanted
very much to ask her what she was doing here but I didn't. I knew I'd get more out of her if I let
it come her way.

"Mr. De Kalb asked me to meet you, Mr. Cortland," she said in her pleasant soft voice. "Hello,
it's nice to see you again. You've been having quite a time in Rio, haven't you?"

"Old stuff now," I said. "This looks promising, if you're in on it. What's up, anyhow?"

She gave me that shy smile again. She had a tired gentle face, gray curls cut very short, gray
eyes like two flashes of light off a steel beam when she let you meet her direct gaze. Mostly she
was too shy. But when you caught that rare quick glance of her it was almost frightening. You
realized then the hard dazzling mind behind the eyes.

"Ill let Mr. De Kalb tell you all about that," she said. "It isn't my secret. But you're involved
more than you know. In factтАФ" She paused, not looking at me, but giving the corner of the carpet a
gentle scowl. "In fact, I'd like to show you something. We've got a little time to spare, and I
want your reaction toтАФto something. Come with me and we'll see."

I followed her out into the hall, down a flight of steps and then into a big room, comfortably
furnished. A study, I thought. But the bookshelves were empty now and everything was lightly
filmed with dust.

"The fireplace, Mr. Cortland," Dr. Essen said, pointing.

It was an ordinary fireplace, gray stone in the pine-panelled wall, with a gray stone hearth. But
there seemed to be

a stain at one spot on the hearth, close to the wall. I stepped closer. Then I knelt to look.

The speed of a chain of thoughts conies as close as anything I know to annihilating time itself.
The images that flashed through my mind seemed to come all at once.



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I saw the stain. I thoughtтАФtransmutation. There was no overt reason but I thought it. And then
before I could take it in clearly with my conscious mind, in the chambers of the unconscious I was
standing again at the alley mouth in Rio at , three in the morning, seeing a dark thing leap
forward at me with its two hands outstretched.