"Rog Phillips - The Yelllow Pill" - читать интересную книгу автора (Phillips Rog)

"My name is Dr. Cedric Elton," Cedric enunciated. "You are not on a spaceship. You were brought to
my office by the four policemen standing in back of you, andтАФ"

Jerry Bocek turned his head and studied each of the four policemen with frank curiosity. "What
policemen?" he interrupted. "You mean these four gear lockers?" He turned his head back and looked
pityingly at Dr. Elton. "You'd better get hold of yourself, Gar," he said. "You're imagining things."

"My name is Dr. Cedric Elton," Cedric said.

Gerald Bocek leaned forward and said with equal firmness, "Your name is Gar Castle. I refuse to call
you Dr. Cedric Elton, because your name is Gar Castle, and I'm going to keep on calling you Gar Castle
because we have to have at least one peg of rationality in all this madness or you will be cut completely
adrift in this dream world you've cooked up."

Cedric's eyebrows shot halfway up to his hairline.

"Funny," he mused, smiling. "That's exactly what I was just going to say to you!"



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Cedric continued to smile. Jerry's serious intenseness slowly faded. Finally an answering smile tugged at
the corners of his mouth. When it became a grin, Cedric laughed, and Jerry began to laugh with him. The
four police officers looked at one another uneasily.

"Well!" Cedric finally gasped. "I guess that puts us on an even footing! You're nuts to me and I'm nuts to
you!"

"An equal footing is right!" Jerry shouted in high glee. Then he sobered. "Except," he said gently, "I'm tied
up."

"In a straitjacket," Cedric corrected.

"Ropes," Jerry said firmly.

"You're dangerous," Cedric said. "You killed six people, one of them a police officer, and wounded two
other officers."

"I blasted five Venusian lizard pirates who boarded our ship," Jerry said, "and melted the door off of one
gear locker and seared the paint on two others. You know as well as I do, Gar, how space madness
causes you to personify everything. That's why they drill into you that the minute you think there are more
people on board the ship than there were at the beginning of the trip, you'd better go to the medicine
locker and take a yellow pill. They can't hurt anything but a delusion."

"If that is so," Cedric said, "why are you in a straitjacket?"

"I'm tied up with ropes," Jerry said patiently. "You tied me up. Remember?"