"Tom Reamy - San Diego Lightfoot Sue" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reamy Tom)

remembered to meet meтАФand there was actually no doubt of that, since he is the most considerate and
orderly minded of sons, a real German mentality, though I say it myself.

I headed for the express bank, enjoying my passage through the clusters of high-class people who
thronged the lobby without any unseemly crowding, and placed myself before the doors designated
"Dirigible Departure Lounge" and in briefer German "Zum Zeppelin."

The elevator hostess was an attractive Japanese girl in skirt of dull silver with the DLG, Double Eagle and
Dirigible insignia of the German Airship Union emblazoned in small on the left breast of her mutedly silver
jacket. I noted with unvoiced approval that she appeared to have an excellent command of both German
and English and was uniformly courteous to the passengers in her smiling but unemotional Nipponese
fashion, which is so like our German scientific precision of speech, though without the latter's warm
underlying passion. How good that our two federations, at opposite sides of the globe, have strong
commercial and behavioral ties!

My fellow passengers in the lift, chiefly Americans and Germans, were of the finest type, very well
dressedтАФexcept that just as the doors were about to close, there pressed in my doleful Jew in black. He
seemed ill at ease, perhaps because of his shabby clothing. I was surprised, but made a point of being
particularly polite toward him, giving him a slight bow and brief but friendly smile, while flashing my eyes.
Jews have as much right to the acme of luxury travel as any other people on the planet, if they have the
moneyтАФand most of them do. During our uninterrupted and infinitely smooth pas-
14 FBITZ LEIBER

sage upward, I touched my outside left breast pocket to reassure myself that my ticketтАФfirst class on
the Ostwald!тАФand my papers were there. But actually I got far more reassurance and even secret joy
from the feel and thought of the documents in my tightly zippered inside left breast pocket: the signed
preliminary agreements that would launch America herself into the manufacture of passenger zeppelins.
Modern Germany is always generous in sharing her -great technical achievements with responsible sister
nations, supremely confident that the genius of her scientists and engineers will continue to keep her well
ahead of all other lands; and after all, the genius of two Americans, father and son, had made vital though
indirect contributions to the development of safe airship travel (and not forgetting the part played by the
Polish-born wife of the one and mother of the other).

The obtaining of those documents had been the chief and official reason for my trip to New York City,
though I had been able to combine it most pleasurably with a long overdue visit with my son, the social
historian, and with his charming wife.

These happy reflections were cut short by the jar-less arrival of our elevator at its lofty terminus on the
one hundredth floor. The journey old love-smitten King Kong had made only after exhausting exertion
we had accomplished effortlessly. The silvery doors spread wide. My fellow passengers hung back for a
moment in awe and perhaps a little trepidation at the thought of the awesome journey ahead of them, and
IтАФseasoned airship traveler that I amтАФwas the first to step out, favoring with a smile and nod of
approval my pert yet cool Japanese fellow employee of the lower echelons.

Hardly sparing a glance toward the great, fleckless window confronting the doors and showing a
matchless view of Manhattan from an elevation of 1,250 feet minus two stories, I briskly turned, not right
to the
CATCH THAT ZEPPEIJNl 15

portals of the Departure Lounge and tower elevator, but left to those of the superb German restaurant