"Mack Reynolds - After Utopia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Mack)

тАЬWell,тАЭ he said happily. тАЬWell, we did it, didnтАЩt we?тАЭ
тАЬWhat?тАЭ Cogswell said, his voice still stiff.
The older manтАЩs costume was as bizarre as EdmondsтАЩ
was bizarre but without similarity. His clothing
resembled the haiks worn by the Arab women, or, better
still, a Roman toga: white and draping.
Jo Edmonds said, тАЬTracy Cogswell, may I introduce
Academician Walter Stein.тАЭ He paused for a moment,
smiled lazily, and added, тАЬthe genius responsible for your
presence here.тАЭ His thumb was still caressing the bit of
green stone.
Cogswell felt too weak even to come to his elbow.
тАЬWhy?тАЭ he said.
Stein bustled over to him, patted his pillow, obviously
pleased. тАЬNow, no more now,тАЭ he chortled. тАЬLater, when
youтАЩre stronger. Now you must rest. First, weтАЩll get just a
touch of food into you, and then youтАЩll rest. Oh, there
must be quite a bit of rest at first.тАЭ
That was all right. Almost anything was all right. Food
and rest. That was obviously the ticket. All problems
could be solved later.
The food came, brought by a girl in her late twenties
who looked somewhat like Paulette Goddard back when
that actress had been the reigning beauty of Hollywood.
She also had some facial resemblance to the older of the
two men.
The food consisted of a thick soup. She watched him,
wide-eyed and speechless, as she fed him. She wore an
outfit composed of a bikini-type top, a pair of
peddle-pushers, and startling shoes of golden color.
Yes, Paulette Goddard, Tracy thought. She looks
something like Paulette Goddard, and she has a better
figure. Wherever I am, theyтАЩve got some strange ideas
about clothes.
When he awoke the second time, there was more food.
After a while, theyтАЩd gotten him up into a chair and
pushed him out onto a terrace. He recognized the scene.
No other houses were in sight, but there was no doubt
about it, he was within a mile of Cape Spartel, atop the
mountain which rises above Tangier and looks out over
Spain and the Atlantic. Over in that direction was
Trafalgar. When Nelson had fought his last naval battle
with the fleets of Bonaparte, residents had been able to
hear the thunder of the guns.
There was little else he could indentify. The
architecture of the house was extreme to the point of
making Frank Lloyd WrightтАЩs wildest conceptions a
primitive adobe by comparison. The chair in which he sat
was wheelless, but it carried him at the gentlest direction
of Jo EdmondsтАЩ hand.