"Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Adaptive Ultimate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weinbaum Stanley G)

He was staring in utter horror. "HowтАФ"

"Oh, I decided to walk a bit. After a block or two, it occurred to me that I should like to ride. There was
a car parked there with the keys in it, and the driver was talking on the sidewalk, so I slipped in, started
it, and drove away. Naturally I drove rather fast, since he was shouting, and at the second corner I hit a
little boy."

"AndтАФyou didn't stop?"

"Of course not. I drove around the corner, turned another corner or two, and then parked the car and
walked back. The boy was gone, but the crowd was still there. Not one of them noticed me." She smiled
her saintlike smile. "We're quite safe. They can't possibly trace me."

Scott dropped his head on his hands and groaned. "I don't know what to do!" he muttered. "Kyra, you're
going to have to report this to the police."

"But it was an accident," she said gently, her luminous silver eyes pityingly on Scott.

"No matter. You'll have to."

She placed her white hand on his head. "Perhaps tomorrow," she said. "Dan, I have learned something.
What one needs in this world is power. As long as there are people in the world with more power than I,
I run afoul of them. They keep trying to punish me with their lawsтАФand why? Their laws are not for me.
They cannot punish me."

He did not answer.

"Therefore," she said softly, "tomorrow I go out of here to seek power. I will be more powerful than any
laws."

That shocked him to action. "Kyra!" he cried. "You're not to try to leave here again." He gripped her
shoulders. "Promise me! Swear that you'll not step beyond that door without me!"

"Why, if you wish," she said quietly.

"But swear it! Swear it by everything sacred!"

Her silver eyes looked steadily into his from a face like that of a marble angel. "I swear it," she murmured.
"By anything you name, I swear it, Dan."

And in the morning she was gone, taking what cash and bills had been in Scott's wallet, and in Bach's as
well. And, they discovered later, in Mrs. Getz's also.
"But if you could have seen her!" muttered Scott. "She looked straight into my eyes and promised, and
her face was pure as a madonna's. I can't believe she was lying."

"The lie as an adaptive mechanism," said Bach, "deserves more attention than it has received. Probably
the original liars are those plants and animals that use protective mimicryтАФharmless snakes imitating
poisonous ones, stingless flies that look like bees. Those are living lies."