"Callahan 02 - Time Travellers Strictly Cash 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

"Damn straight," -Eddie croaked.
"We'll help you find your own miracle," Long-Drink assured her. "They come by here regular."
There were murmurs of agreement, encouraging words. She stared around the place as though we had all turned into toads. "And what do you want from me?" she snapped.
"That you hold up your end," I said. "That you not leave us holding the bag. Suicide isn't just a cop-out; it's a ripoff."
She shook her head, as vIolently as- she dared. "People don't do that people don't act this way."
My voice softened, saddened. "Upright apes don't. People do."
She finished her drink. "But-"
"Listen, we just contradicted something you said earlier. It seems like it does take some kind of genius person to share pain. And I think you did a better job than I could have done Two, three years you stayed with that poor bastard? Kathy, that strength and compassion you gave to Cass for so long, the imagination and empathy you have so much of, those are things we badly need here. We get a lot of incoming wounded. You could be of use here, while you're waiting for your own miracle."
She looked around at every face, looked long at Callahan and longest at me.
Then she shook her head and said, "Maybe I already got it," and she burst finally and explosively into tears, flinging herself into my arms. They were the right kind of tears. I smiled and smiled for some considerable time, and then I saw the block and got very businesslike. Wally would be along soon, and there was much to be done. "Okay, Eddie, you get her address from her purse-and ankle over there. Make sure that fool kid didn't screw up. Pyotr, you Litvak Samaritan, go on out and wake up your wheels. Here, Drink, you get her out to the parking lot; I can't hold her up much longer~ Margie, you're the girl friend she went to spend the weekend with yesterday, okay? You're gonna put her up until she's ready to face the cops. Doc, you figure out what she's contracted that she doesn't want to bother her husband by calling. Shorty, if nobody discovers the body by, say, tomorrow noon, you make a service call to the wrong address and find him. Mike-"
Callahan was already holding out one finger of Irish.
"Say, Jake," Callahan said softly, "didn't I hear your wife's name was Diane? Kinda short and red-haired and jolly, gray eyes?"
We smiled at each other. "It was a plausible miracle that didn't take a whole lot of buildup and explanation. What if I'd told her we stopped an alien from blowing up the earth in here once?"
"You talk good on your feet, son."
I walked up to the chalk line. "Let me make the toast now," I said loudly. "The same one I've made annually for five years-with a little addition."
Folks hushed up and listened.
"To my family," I said formally, then-drained the Irish and gently underhanded my glass onto the hearth.
And then I turned around and faced them all and added, "Each and every one of you."

Concerning "Fivesight":

There's been a wave of stuff about precognition in the popular media these days-people who dream disasters before they happen and so forth. Whether or not there's anything to it I couldn't say, but I'm willing to believe it can happen.
But when I will become seriously interested in precogni tion is the first time I hear of a disaster averted because of precognition. If some guy dreams a given flight is going to go down, and they cancel the flight and discover on inspection that it would have gone down, then I will join my local Support Your Prophets Club.
Unless and until that happens, I suspect the kindest thing to doforprecognitors is to shoot them. Kindest for the future victims, too-if you know the date and manner of my death, kindly keep it to yourself.
Life's greatest virtue is its ability to surprise.
Postscript: both of the anecdotes told by Tommy Janssen. and Long-Drink McGonnigle early in "Fivesight" actually occurred, exactly as described-but not to them. Each stole his story from me (that's all right-I've stolen them back). The first happened to my old college chum, Dirty Jack, and the second happened to my brother-in-law, John Moore. Honest.


SOUL SEARCH

Rebecca Howell stood beside the plexiglass tank that contained the corpse of her husband Archer, trembling with anticipation.
A maelstrom of conflicting emotions raged within her; fondness, yearning, awe, lust, triumphant satisfaction, fierce joy and an underlayer of fear all trying to coexist in the same skull. Perhaps no one in all human history had experienced that precise mix of emotions, for her situation was close, to unique. Because she was who and what she was, it would shortly lead her to develop the first genuinely new motive for murder in several thousand years.
"Go ahead," she said aloud, and eight people in white crowded around the transparent cryotank with her. In practiced silence, they began doing things.
John Dimsdale touched her shoulder. "Reb," he said softly, "come on. Let them work."
"No."
"Reb, the first part is not pretty. I think you should-"
"Dammit, I know that!"
"I think, "he repeated insistently, "you should come with me."
She stiffened; and then she saw some of the things the technicians were doing. "All right. Doctor Bharadwaj!"
One of the white-suited figures looked up irritably.
"Call me before you fire the pineal. Without fail." She led Dimsdale lead her from the room, down white tile corridors to Bharadwaj's offices. His secretary looked up as they entered, and hastened to open the door leading into the doctor's imier sanctum for them. Dimsdale dismissed him, and Howell sat down heavily in the luxurious desk chair, putting her feet up on Bharadwaj 's desk. They were both silent for perhaps ten minutes.
"Eight years," she said finally. "Will it really work, John?"
"No reason why it shouldn't," he said. "Every reason why it should."
"It's never been done before."
"On a human, no; not successfully. But the problems have been solved. It worked with those cats, didn't it? And that. ape?"
"Yes, but-"
"Look, Bharadwaj knows perfectly well you'll have his skull for an ashtray if he fails. Do you think he'd try it at all if he weren't certain?"
After a pause she relaxed. "You're right, of course." She looked at him then, really seeing him for the first time that day, and her expression softened. "Thank you, John. I thank you for everything. This must be even harder for you than it-"
"Put it out of your mind."
"I just feel so-"