"Judith Merril - The Tomorrow People" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merril Judith)

THE TOMORROW PEOPLE by Judith Merril
Scanned by BW-SciFi

This book is fiction. No resemblance is intended between any character herein and any person,
living or dead; any such re-semblance is purely coincidental.

For Milt and the unturned back
Published by Pyramid Books
First printing: May 1960

Copyright, ┬й 1960, by Judith Merril
All Rights Reserved

Printed in the United States of America
PROLOGUE
June, 1973тАФJanuary, 1976
They sent two men out through unknown space to a far cold place, a place whose very name
was fear, the name of the cruel god, the god of war. They shot two men off the MoonтАФ out from
the sun and away from the earthтАФin a new great ship with a shiny hull and a miracle fuel.
The ship went out with a blast and a prayer. After three years it came back with a sigh,
unpowered, fuel-less, floating in slow-spiraled orbit through empty sky around the Moon. It came
back with its hull scratched and dented and darkened from the dust and debris of space, the wind
and sands of Mars. It came back with one man in it instead of two.
Johnny Wendt was the one who came back.
PART ONE
January 1976тАФJune 23,1977
Rockland, N. Y.тАФThursday, June 23, 1:30 am. (E.D.S.T.)

He woke up screaming again.
Or else he dreamed the scream?
But when his eyes started to open, they closed reactively against the light. So Lee was up. And
so it was no dream.
Sweat tickled his neck, but he lay still, breathing evenly, eyes shut. He would talk to her in the
morning. Not now. In the morning it would be better, but not now. . . .
He opened his eyes a slit to make sure. It was her light, all right. She was sitting up, watching
him.
"Sorry, darling," she said. "I couldn't get to sleep, I didn't think the light would bother you. . . ."
"Huh?" He blinked his eyes open wider. She was sitting, but with a pillow propped behind her
back, book on her lap. "No, 'sarigh'," he mumbled. "Go 'head. Light don' bother..."
She'd been reading. . . . She had been up first! He shook his head, clearing it, got her in focus.
The flicker of frown on her forehead was apology, not worry. . . .
So it had been a dream?
"Hey," he said, "Was I . . . ?" He twisted his neck cau-tiously, felt for the knot in back with an
exploring hand. "I feel like . . . Was I keeping you up, babe? Thrashing around, or ... anything?"
"No. It was just this damn book. I got started reading it and I kept thinking and I couldn't
sleepтАФI'm sorry, darling," she said again.
She closed the book with a snap and reached for the light switch.
No!
"Don't quit on account of me," he said quickly. "Light doesn't bother me." Jesus, what a dream!
"Anyhow, I'm up now." He rubbed at his neck, groped under the pillow and found his handkerchief.