"William Tenn - Time in Advance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tenn William)

"Stall them."
"But, Mr. Hebster, the UM Special InvestigatingтАФ"
"Stall them, I said. Are you a receptionist or a swinging door? Use your
imagina-tion, Ruth. You have a nine-hundred-man organization and a
ten-million-dollar corporation at your disposal. You can stage any kind of farce in
that outer office you wantтАФup to and including the deal where some actor made up
to look like me walks in and drops dead at their feet. Stall them and I'll nod a bonus
at you. Stall them." He clicked off, looked up.
His visitors, at least, were having a fine time. They had turned to face each other in
a reeking triangle of gibberish. Their voices rose and fell argumentatively, pleadingly,
decisively; but all Algernon Hebster's ears could register of what they said were very
many sounds similar to gabble and an occasional, indisputable honk!
His lips curled contempt inward. Humanity prime! These messes? Then he lit a
cigarette and shrugged. Oh, well. Humanity prime. And business is business.
Just remember they're not supermen, he told himself. They may be dangerous, but
they're not supermen. Not by a long shot. Remember that epidemic of influenza that
al-most wiped them out, and how you diddled those two other Primeys last month.
They're not supermen, but they're not humanity either. They're just different.
He glanced at his secretary and approved. Greta Seidenheim clacked away on her
machine as if she were recording the curtest, the tritest of business letters. He
won-dered what system she was using to catch the intonations. Trust Greta, though,
she'd do it.
"Gabble, honk! Gabble, gabble, gabble, honk, honk. Gabble, honk, gabble,
gabble, honk? Honk."
What had precipitated all this conversation? He'd only asked for their names.
Didn't they use names in Arizona? Surely, they knew that it was customary here.
They claimed to know at least as much as he about such matters.
Maybe it was something else that had brought them to New York this
timeтАФmaybe something about the Aliens? He felt the short hairs rise on the back of
his neck and he smoothed them down self-consciously.
Trouble was it was so easy to learn their language. It was such a very simple
matter to be able to understand them in these talkative moments. Almost as easy as
falling off a logтАФor jumping off a cliff.
Well, his time was limited. He didn't know how long Ruth could hold the UM
investigators in his outer office. Somehow he had to get a grip on the meeting again
without offending them in any of the innumerable, highly dangerous ways in which
Primeys could be offended.
He rapped the desk topтАФgently. The gabble-honk stopped short at the hyphen.
The woman rose slowly.
"On this question of names," Hebster began doggedly, keeping his eyes on the
woman, "since you people claimтАФ"
The woman writhed agonizingly for a moment and sat down on the floor. She
smiled at Hebster. With her rotted teeth, the smile had all the brilliance of a dead star.
Hebster cleared his throat and prepared to try again.
"If you want names," the older man said suddenly, "you can call me Larry."
The president of Hebster Securities shook himself and managed to say "Thanks"
in a somewhat weak but not too surprised voice. He looked at the thin young man.
"You can call me Theseus." The young man looked sad as he said it.
"Theseus? Fine!" One thing about Primeys, when you started clicking with them,
you really moved along. But Theseus! Wasn't that just like a Primey? Now the