"Norton, Andre - Time Traders" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

considered trying to give the major the slip when they left the building, losing himself in a storm-
darkened city, but they did not take the elevator downstairs. Instead, they climbed two or three flights
up the emergency stairs. And to his humiliation Ross found himself panting and slowing, while the
other man, who must have been a good dozen years his senior, showed no signs of discomfort.
They came out into the wind and snow on the roof, and the major flashed a torch toward a dark
shadow waiting for them with rotating blades. A helicopter! For the first time Ross began to doubt the
wisdom of his choice.
"Keep away from the tail rotors, Murdock!" The voice was impersonal enough, but that very
impersonality got under one's skin.
Bundled into the machine between the silent major and an equally quiet pilot in uniform, Ross was
lifted over the city, whose ways he knew as well as he knew the lines on his own palm, into the
unknown he was already beginning to regard dubiously. The lighted streets and buildings, their
outlines softened by the soft wet snow, fell out of sight. Now they could mark the outer highways.
Ross refused to ask any questions. He could take this silent treatment, he had taken a lot of tougher
things in the past.
The patches of light disappeared, and the country opened out. The plane banked. Ross, with all the
familiar landmarks of his world gone, could not have said if they were headed north or south. But
moments later not even the thick curtain of snowflakes could blot out the pattern of red lights on the
ground, and the helicopter settled down.
"Come on!"
For the second time Ross obeyed. He stood shivering, engulfed in a miniature blizzard. His
clothing, protection enough in the city, did little good against the push of the wind. A hand gripped
his upper arm, and he was drawn forward to a low building. A door banged and Ross and his
companion came into a region of light and very welcome heat.
"Sit down--over there!"
Too bewildered to resent orders, Ross sat. There were other men in the room. One, wearing a queer
suit of padded clothing, a bulbous helmet hooked over his arm, was reading a paper. The major
crossed to speak to him and after they conferred for a moment, the major beckoned Ross with a
crooked finger. Ross trailed the officer into an inner room lined with lockers.
From one of the lockers the major pulled a suit like the pilot's, and began to measure it against
Ross. "All right," he snapped. "Climb into this! We haven't all night."
Ross climbed into the suit. As soon as he fastened the last zipper his companion jammed one of the
domed helmets on his head. The pilot looked in the door. "We'd better scramble, Kelgarries, or we
may be grounded for the duration."
They hurried back to the flying field. If the helicopter had been a surprising mode of travel, this
new machine was something straight out of the future--a needle-slim ship poised on fins, its sharp
nose lifting vertically into the heavens. There was a scaffolding along one side, which the pilot scaled
to enter the ship.
Unwillingly, Ross climbed the same ladder and found that he must wedge himself in on his back,
his knees hunched up almost under his chin. To make it worse, cramped as those quarters were, he
had to share them with the major. A transparent hood snapped down and clicked secure, sealing them
in.
During his short lifetime Ross had often been afraid, bitterly afraid. He had fought to toughen his
mind and body against such fears. But what he experienced now was no ordinary fear; it was panic so
strong that it made him feel sick. To be shut in this small place with the knowledge that he had no
control over his immediate future brought him face to face with every terror he had ever known, all of
them combined into one horrible whole.
How long does a nightmare last? A moment? An hour? Ross could not time his. But at last the
weight of a giant hand clamped down on his chest, and he fought for breath until the world exploded
about him.