"A. E. Van Vogt - The Cataaaa" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Vogt A E)

examines you with the same interest that you examine it."
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The bell rang at that moment, and I was spared the necessity of making a comment. I remember
thinking, however, that people hadn't changed much. They were still primarily interested in
eccentricity whereas, as a scientist, the processes of normalcy seemed to me far more fascinating.
I still had no intention of going to the circus. But on the way home that afternoon I put my hand
in my breast pocket, and drew out the postcard with the photograph of Silkey on the front. I
turned it over absently, and read again the message that was on it:
"The interspatial problem of delivering mail involves enormous energy problems,
which effect time differentials. Accordingly,
it is possible that this card will arrive before I know who you are. As a precaution
I am sending another one to the circus with your name and address on it, and the
two cards will go out together.
"Do not worry too much about the method of delivery. I simply put an instrument
into a mail box. This precipitates the cards into the box on earth, and they will
then be picked up and delivered in the usual fashion. The precipitator then
dissolves.
The photograph speaks for itself."
It didn't. Which is what began to irritate me again. I jammed the card back into my pocket, halfminded
to phone up Silkey and ask him what the silly thing meant, if anything. I refrained, of
course. It wasn't important enough.
When I got out of bed the next morning, the words, "The cat wants to talk to you!" were
scrawled on the outside of the same window pane. They must have been there a long time.
Because, even as I stared at them, they began to fade. By the time I finished breakfast they were
gone.
I was disturbed now rather than angry. Such persistence on Silkey's part indicated neurotic
overtones in his character. It was possible that I ought to go to his show, and so give him the
petty victory that would lay his ghost, which had now haunted me two nights running. However,
it was not till after lunch that a thought occurred to me that suddenly clinched my intention. I
remembered Virginia.
For two years I had been professor of biology at State. It was an early ambition which, now that I
had realized it, left me at a loose end for the first time in my life. Accordingly, for the first time
in my rather drab existence the mating urge was upon me. Virginia was the girl, and,
unfortunately, she regarded me as a cross between a fossil and a precision brain. I felt sure that
the idea of marrying me had not yet occurred to her.
For some time it had seemed to me that if I could only convince her, without loss of dignity, that
I was a romantic fellow she might be fooled into saying yes. What better method than to pretend
that I still got excited over circuses, and, as a grand climax to the evening I would take her in to
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see Silkey Travis, and hope that my acquaintance with such a character would thrill her exotic
soul.
The first hurdle was bridged when I called her up, and she agreed to go to the circus with me. I
put the best possible face on for the preliminaries, riding the ferris wheel and such juvenilia. But
the moment of the evening for me came when I suggested that we go and see the freaks being
shown by my friend, Silkey Travis.
It really went over. Virginia stopped and looked at me almost accusingly.
"Philip," she said, "you're not trying to pretend that you know a person called Silkey? She drew a
deep breath. "That I have to see."
Silkey came through beautifully. He was not in when we entered, but the ticket taker called into
some rear compartment. And a minute later Silkey came charging into the main freak tent. He