"A. E. Van Vogt - Recruiting Station (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Vogt A E)

A. E. v~ V0GT


RECRUITING STATION

Si~ DIDN'T DARE! Suddenly, the night was a cold, enveloping thing. The edge of the broad, black river gurgled evilly at her feet as if, now that she had changed her mind-it hungered for her.
Her foot slipped on the wet, sloping ground; and her mind grew blurred with the terrible senseless fear that things were reaching out of the night, trying to drown her now against her will.
She fought up the bank-and slumped breathless onto the nearest park bench, coldly furious with her fear. Dully, she watched the gaunt man come along the pathway past the light standard. So sluggish was her brain that she was not aware of surprise when she realized he was coming straight toward her.
The purulent yellowish light made a crazy patch of his shadow across her where she sat. His voice, when he spoke, was vaguely foreign in tone, yet modulated, cultured. He said:
"Are you interested in the Calonian cause?"
Norma stared. There was no quickening in her brain, but suddenly she began to laugh. It was funny, horribly, hysterically funny funny. To be sitting here, trying to get up the nerve for another attempt at those deadly waters, and then to have some crackbrain come along and- "You're deluding yourself, Miss Matheson," the man went on coolly.
"You're not the suicide type."
"Nor the pickup type!" she answered automatically. "Beat it before-" Abruptly, it penetrated that the man had called her by name. She
looked up sharply at the dark blank that was his face. His head against the background of distant light nodded as if in reply to the question that quivered in her thought.
"Yes, I know your name. I also know your history and your feari"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that a young scientist named Garson arrived in the city tonight to deliver a series of lectures. Ten years ago, when you and he graduated from the same university, he asked you to marry him, but it was a career you wanted-and now you've been terrified that, in your extremity, you would go to him for assistance and-"


"Stop!"
The man seemed to watch her as she sat there breathing heavily. He said at last, quietly:
"I think I have proved that I am not simply a casual philanderer."
"What other kind of philanderer is there?" Norma asked, sluggish again. But she made no objection as he sank down on the far end of the bench. His back was still to the light, his features night-developed.
"Ah," he said, "you joke; you are bitter. But that is an improvement. You feel now, perhaps, that if somebody has taken an interest in you, all is not lost."
Norma said dully: 'People who are acquainted with the basic laws of psychology are cursed with the memory of them even when disaster strikes into their lives. All I've done the last ten years is-"
She stopped; then: "You're very clever. Without more than arousing my instinctive suspicions, you've insinuated yourself into the company of an hysterical woman. What's your purpose?"
"I intend to offer you a job."
Norma's laugh sounded so harsh in her own ears that she thought, startled: "I am hysterical!"
Aloud, she said: "An apartment, jewels, a car of my own, I suppose?"
His reply was cool: "No! To put it frankly, you're not pretty enough. Too angular, mentally and physically. That's been one of your troubles the last ten years; a developing introversion of the mind which has influenced the shape of your body unfavorably."
The words shivered through the suddenly stiffened muscles of her body. With an enormous effort, she forced herself to relax. She said: "I had that coming to me. Insults are good for hysteria; so now what?"
"Are you interested in the Calonian cause?"
"There you go again," she complained. "But yes, I'm for it. Birds of a feather, you know."
╢~I know very well indeed. In fact, in those words you named the reason why I am here tonight, hiring a young woman who is up against it. Calonia, too, is up against it and-" He stopped; in the darkness, he spread his shadow-like hands. "You see: good publicity for our recruiting centers."
Norma nodded. She did see, and, suddenly, she didn't trust herself to speak; her hand trembled as she took the key he held out.
"This key," he said, "will lit the lock of the front door of the recruiting station; it will also fit the lock of the door leading to the apartment above it. The apartment is yours while you have the job. You can go there tonight if you wish, or wait until morning if you fear this is merely a device
-now, I must give you a warning."
"Warning?"
"Yes. The work we are doing is illegal. Actually, only the American government can enlist American citizens and operate recruiting stations.


We exist on sufferance and sympathy, but at any time someone may lay a charge; and the police will have to act."
Norma nodded rapidly. "That's no risk," she said. "No judge would ever- "The address is 322 Carlton Street," he cut in smoothly. "And for your
information, my name is Dr. Lell."
Norma had the distinct sense of being pushed along too swiftly for caution. She hesitated, her mind on the street address. "Is that near Bessemer?"
It was his turn to hesitate. "I'm afraid," he confessed, "I don't know this city very well, at least not in its twentieth century. . . that is," he finished suavely, "I was here many years ago, before the turn of the century."
Norma wondered vaguely why he bothered to explain; she said, half-accusingly: "You're not a Calonian. You sound-French, maybe."
"You're not a Calonian, either!" he said, and stood up abruptly. She watched him walk off into the night, a great gloom-wrapped figure that vanished almost immediately.
She stopped short in the deserted night street. The sound that came was like a whisper touching her brain; a machine whirring somewhere with almost infinite softness. For the barest moment, her mind concentrated on the shadow vibrations; and then, somehow, they seemed to fade like figments of her imagination. Suddenly, there was only the street and the silent night.
The street was dimly lighted; and that brought doubt, sharp and tinged with a faint fear. She strained her eyes and traced the numbers in the shadow of the door: 322! That was it!