"Michael Swanwick - Legions in Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

strongly she felt about it.

Thirty seconds later, the door opened and Mr. Tarblecko strode briskly out. Without breaking his
stride, or, indeed, showing the least sign of emotion, he picked her up by her two arms, swiveled
effortlessly, and deposited her to the side.

Then he was gone. Ellie heard his footsteps dwindling down the hall.

The nerve! The sheer, raw gall of the man!

Ellie went back in the office, but she couldnтАЩt make herself sit down at the desk. She was far too
upset. Instead, she walked back and forth the length of the room, arguing with herself, saying
aloud those things she should have said and would have said if only Mr. Tarblecko had stood still
for them. To be picked up and set aside like that . . . well, it was really quite upsetting. It
was intolerable.

What was particularly distressing was that there wasnтАЩt even any way to make her displeasure
known.

At last, though, she calmed down enough to think clearly, and realized that she was wrong. There
was somethingтАУsomething more symbolic than substantive, admittedlyтАУthat she could do.

She could open that door.

Ellie did not act on impulse. She was a methodical woman. So she thought the matter through before
she did anything. Mr. Tarblecko very rarely showed up at the officeтАУonly twice in all the time
sheтАЩd been here, and sheтАЩd been here over a year. Moreover, the odds of him returning to the
office a third time only minutes after leaving it were negligible. He had left nothing behindтАУshe
could see that at a glance; the office was almost Spartan in its emptiness. Nor was there any work
here for him to return to.

Just to be safe, though, she locked the office door. Then she got her chair out from behind the
desk and chocked it up under the doorknob, so that even if somebody had a key, he couldnтАЩt get in.
She put her ear to the door and listened for noises in the hall.


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Nothing.

It was strange how, now that she had decided to do the deed, time seemed to slow and the office to
expand. It took forever to cross the vast expanses of empty space between her and the closet door.
Her hand reaching for its knob pushed through air as thick as molasses. Her fingers closed about
it, one by one, and in the time it took for them to do so, there was room enough for a hundred
second thoughts. Faintly, she heard the sound of . . . machinery? A low humming noise.

She placed the key in the lock, and opened the door.