"Wilson-ToTheVectorBelong" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Robin)

unimaginable name of God that was. "The extra finger. You mind if I ask you
something personal?" He is now tired beyond the point where he much gives a
damn, and as usual under such circumstances, he is feeling antic, wants to give
the listeners out in some command center, probably a van over in Alameda,
something to think about. It is the kind of thing that over the years has
prompted comments from his superiors about attitude.

"Shoot."

"If they hadn't of cut it off, what in hell would the sixth little piggy do?"

Al looks blankly at his miniature sea of circles for a moment. Then, "Oh! Yeah!
'This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home.'"

"Yes," says Lindstrom, "and the last one, the fifth one . . . ?"

"Right," says Al, "and me with a sixth finger that doesn't fit the rhyme." And
then in a high pitched version of his mechanical chant of memorization, he
sings, "Wee, wee, wee, I can't find my way home." He pauses. "Wherever that is.
Jake, what happens next? I mean to me?"

"Don't know."

There is, Lindstrom notes, a tilt to the brow over the alien's left eye, the
blue one, that he believes connotes wry amusement at this minor imperfection in
his amazing adaptation to a strange world. This guy, thinks Lindstrom, is well
schooled, like Japan is prosperous. But why?

On their way out they pause in the men's room and Lindstrom relieves himself of
the afternoon's drink. It is an awkward maneuver to perform one-handed, but his
left wrist is now cuffed to Al's right. Although they had matched consumption
drink for drink, Al has no need for relief, nor does he show any sign of
intoxication. Lindstrom wonders idly if this results from alien physiology or
simply the third of a century difference in their ages. Time is also a great
estranger, he thinks. Twenty-five-year-old Jacob Lindstrom, the Berkeley dropout
going under cover for the Justice Department task force on the 1965 Viola Liuzzo
murder down in Selma, is just about as alien to the retiring lake Lindstrom as
the guy on the other end of the cuffs, who continues to chatter, eyeing the
men's room fixtures with curiosity. Strange versions of familiar things
fascinate: round doorknobs in the United States; handles in Europe. What in hell
do urinals look like where Al comes from?

Not everyone has fled the building for the police lines; in one of the booths
behind them, an exuberant flatulence sounds. In another, a Hispanic voice says:
"iHey, que?" The perpetrator responds in a strained voice, "iEsta musica!" and
both occupants laugh in throaty gasps. Al laughs too. Spanish must be one of his
languages, thinks Lindstrom. He shakes himself and thinks of the sheer weirdness
.of the day, his participation in an event of historical importance--the first
alien contact!--acted out in a seedy Oakland bar and set to the music of
elimination.