"Robert F. Young - The Other Kids" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

the
other
kids
by . . . Robert F. Young

Robert F. Young seems determined to surprise us. In his previous stories he has traveled to the
farthest planet of the farthest star, evoking desert splendors and the mysterious interplay of light
and shadow on monuments lost to Time's recall. Here he brings us a very human, realistic little
story of memory recall on Earth. But the vistas that stretch beyond it are as strange, as
heartbreakingly moving, as Lieutenant Simms' struggle to break the mold of humanity's cruel
intolerance and achieve brotherhood on a cosmic scale.

It was such a pitifully tiny flying saucer. How could the lonely, small voyager
within be hatefulтАФand an enemy to man?

BY THE time the two army officers came up in the jeep half the population of the little town was
standing along the edge of the meadow. It wasn't a particularly large crowd, but it was a nasty one. There
were shotguns in it, and rifles and knives and lead pipes and baseball bats.
Captain Blair waited till the two truckloads of soldiers arrived, then he pushed his way through the
crowd to the meadow. Lieutenant Simms followed.
The sheriff was standing in front of the crowd, a brand new .270 balanced in the crook of his arm.
He nodded to the captain. "Thought I'd better let the army in on this," he said in a thin rasping voice. "It's
a little out of my line."
The captain squinted at the saucer. It sat in the middle of the meadow, gleaming in the October
sunlight. It looked like a King-size Aladdin's lamp; an Aladdin's lamp without chimney or base, and
totally lacking in ornamentation. The captain had read most of the accounts about saucers and he had
always been impressed by their dimensions, though he had never admitted it to anyone.
This one was disappointing. It was a distinct letdown. It was so small it couldn't possibly contain
more than a crew of one, unless you postulated pint-size Martians. The captain was disgusted. He was
sacrificing his Sunday morning sack time for nothing.
Still, he reconsidered, it was the first authentic saucer, and if it contained any kind of life at all,
pint-size or otherwise, he would be the first human to contact it. There would be generals on the scene
before long of course, and probably even chiefs of staff. But until they got there the responsibility was his.
A tiny gold leaf fluttered before his eyes.
He turned to the lieutenant who was quite young and who, in the captain's private opinion, had no
business in this man's army. "Deploy the men," the captain said. Then he turned to the sheriff. "Get those
people the hell out of here where they won't get hurt!"
The meadow came to life. The crowd shuffled back just far enough to give the impression of
compliance, muttered just loud enough to imply resentment, and parted just wide enough to let the
soldiers through. The soldiers came running, rifles at port, and deployed around the saucer at the
lieutenant's direction, each man dropping to prone position.
The lieutenant rejoined the captain and the two officers stood looking at the little saucer. The
lieutenant was having trouble with a memory. It concerned something that had happened to him when he
was a small boy, but the trouble was he couldn't recall exactly what it was that had happened. All he
could remember was the part that led up to the part he wanted to remember.
He could recall the circumstances clearly enough: the house in the new neighborhood, the morning
after the first snowтАФThe snow had been white and wonderful when he had looked at it from his strange
bedroom window, and all he could think of while he was getting dressed was running outside and finding
out was it good packing and building a snowman and maybe a fort, and playing games . . .
He heard the shouts and laughter of the other neighborhood kids while he was eating breakfast and