"Emil Petaja - The Path Beyond The Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Petaja Emil)

The curved door of the pneumatic up-tube swung noiselessly open and Jon
moved his lean, long-legged frame out of the test tube and onto the soft
green carpet.
On the way down the hall he could have sworn he was being followed.
Three times he snapped a quick look behind and three times nothing.
Nothing at all. The long dimly lighted hallway and all its offshoots were
perfectly empty. Odd. A sense of brooding fear tingled his scalp. When it
happened a fourth timeтАФthat overwhelming certainty that somebody was
breathing down his neckтАФand he spun around to find nothing there, Jon
swore out loud. The abrupt sound helped exorcise his demon.
When he reached 90-18 he waved a hand over the eye-spy to indicate
that somebody was without. There was no response. He put his face close
to the peephole. There. That ought to get her out of the kitchen or away
from her bedroom primping. The closer he was, the louder the bell-chime
warning inside.
Nothing.
Damn!
Convinced after a five-minute wait that Venus Trine was only exercising
her feminine right to keep her visitor waiting and titillated, Jon combed his
long fingers through his untidy mop, pushed up a smile, and stood as close
as he could to the door's peephole. After all, he'd been on the go for a
long, long time. Many months. He was overdue for feminine companionship
and Venus Trine had certainly invited him.
He waited. The smile dropped. The utter deadness of the air (as if
something had drained off every mote of energy from it) made it all too
evident that Venus Trine was not at home. Jon projected some of his
irritable intuate through the locked door and confirmed the fact. While Jon's
intuate wasn't perfectтАФnobody's wasтАФhis batting average was
astonishingly high. starplot appreciated him and guarded him from their
competitors with motherly jealousy; it was this flattering esteem more than
the high pay that kept Jon happy with starplot, this and the fact that he
was left to work in his own way and at his own time. For example, the
built-in snooper had been removed from his scalp six months after he had
attained his present top rating by proving his worth. Jon had insisted on it.
Let the other star-dowsers have their brains hooked up to starplot's spy
computers тАЬfor their own protectionтАЭ if they wanted to. Something within
Jon rebelled. He worked hard. He gave them his best. That had better be
enough or else.
No, damn it. Venus Trine was gone. Copped out. He was a prize idiot for
wasting his time coming up here. If he really wanted a girl, the
steel-and-glass woods down there were full of them. Jon wrenched a yawn.
Sure he wanted a girl, but right now he was dead tired, and six a.m. came
awfully quick.
Moving out into the gently writhing fog again, Jon was once more
possessed with the uneasy feeling that something was close on his tail,
matching step for step, waiting for the propitious moment to pounce. From
the Bay foghorns keened and hooted. Somebody up on one of those
ice-cube balconies laughed. It was a feminine giggle and it was
significantly cut off when somebody pulled the woman into the apartment
and closed the door.