The Fourth Science Fiction MEGAPACK ®. Айн Рэнд

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СКАЧАТЬ I looked at Tiny, and he was trembling. I think he felt it, too. I’d call it a thank you, on a grand psychic scale. I think you can rest assured that Tiny’s monster got what it wanted.

      But that wasn’t the end of it. I paid off the boatmen and started up the bank. Something made me stop, and wait, and then go back to the water’s edge.

      It was early evening, and very still. I was under some sort of compulsion—not an unpleasant thing, but an unbreakable one. I sat down on the river wall and watched the water. There was no one around—the boat had left—except one of those snazzy Sunlounge cruisers anchored a few yards out. I remember how still it was, because there was a little girl playing on the deck of the yacht, and I could hear her footsteps as she ran about.

      Suddenly I noticed something in the water. I suppose I should have been frightened, but somehow I wasn’t at all. Whatever the thing was, it was big and gray and slimy and quite shapeless. And somehow, it seemed to be the source of this aura of well-being and protectiveness that I felt. It was staring at me. I knew it was before I saw that it had an eye—a big one, with something whirling inside of it…I don’t know. I wish I could write. I wish I had the power to tell you what it was like. I know that it was, by human standards, infinitely revolting. If this was Tiny’s monster, I could understand its being sensitive to the revulsion it might cause. And wrongly, for I felt to the core that the creature was good.

      It winked at me. I don’t mean blinked. It winked. And then everything happened at once.

      The creature was gone, and in seconds there was a disturbance in the water by the yacht. Something gray and wet reached up out of the river, and I saw it was going for that little girl. Only a tyke—about three, she was. Red hair just like yours. And it thumped that child in the small of the back just enough to knock her over—into the river.

      And can you believe it? I just sat there watching and said never a word! It didn’t seem right to me that that baby could be struggling in the water. But it didn’t seem wrong, either!

      Well, before I could get my wits together, Tiny was off the wall like a hairy bullet and streaking through the water. I have often wondered why his feet are so big; I never will again. The hound is built like the lower half of a paddle wheel! In two shakes he had the baby by the scruff of the neck and was bringing her back to me. No one had seen that child get pushed, Alistair! No one but me. But there was a man on the yacht who must have seen her fall. He was all over the deck, roaring orders and getting in the way of things, and by the time he had his wherry in the water, Tiny had reached me with the little girl. She wasn’t frightened, either—she thought it was a grand joke! Wonderful youngster.

      So the man came ashore, all gratitude and tears, and wanted to goldplate Tiny or something. Then he saw me. “That your dog?” I said it was my daughter’s. She was in St. Croix on her honeymoon. Before I could stop him, he had a checkbook out and was scratching away at it. He said he knew my kind. Said he knew I’d never accept a thing for myself, but wouldn’t refuse something for my daughter. I enclose the check. Why he picked a sum like thirteen thousand, I’ll never know. Anyhow, I know it’ll be a help to you. Since the money really comes from Tiny’s monster, I suppose I can confess that getting Alec to put up the money—even though he would have to clean out his savings and mortgage his estate—would be a good idea if he were one of the family, because then he’d have you to help him make it all back again—that was all my idea. Sometimes, though, watching you, I wonder if I really had to work so all-fired hard to get you nice people married to each other.

      Well, I imagine that closes the business of Tiny’s monster. There are a lot of things we’ll probably never know. I can guess some things, though. It could communicate with a dog but not with a human, unless it half killed itself trying. Apparently a dog is telepathic with humans to a degree, though it probably doesn’t understand a lot of what it gets. I don’t speak French, but I could probably transcribe French phonetically well enough so a Frenchman could read it. Tiny was transcribing that way. The monster could “send” through him and control him completely. It no doubt indoctrinated the dog—if I can use the term—the day old Debbil took him up the waterline. And when the monster caught, through Tiny, the mental picture of you when Dr. Schwellenbach mentioned you, it went to work through the dog to get you working on its problem. Mental pictures—that’s probably what the monster used. That’s how Tiny could tell one book from another without being able to read. You visualize everything you think about. What do you think? I think that mine’s as good a guess as any.

      You might be amused to learn that last night all the compasses in this neighborhood pointed west for a couple of hours! ’Bye, now, chillun. Keep on being happy.

      Love and love, and a kiss for Alec,

      Mum.

      P.S. Is St. Croix really a nice place to honeymoon? Jack—he’s the fellow who signed the check—is getting very sentimental. He’s very like your father. A widower, and—Oh, I don’t know. Says fate, or something, brought us together. Said he hadn’t planned to take a trip upriver with the baby, but something drove him to it. He can’t imagine why he anchored just there. Seemed a good idea at the time. Maybe it was fate. He is very sweet. I wish I could forget that wink I saw in the water.

      BEYOND LIES THE WUB, by Philip K. Dick

      They had almost finished with the loading. Outside stood the Optus, his arms folded, his face sunk in gloom. Captain Franco walked leisurely down the gangplank, grinning.

      “What’s the matter?” he said. “You’re getting paid for all this.”

      The Optus said nothing. He turned away, collecting his robes. The Captain put his boot on the hem of the robe.

      “Just a minute. Don’t go off. I’m not finished.”

      “Oh?” The Optus turned with dignity. “I am going back to the village.” He looked toward the animals and birds being driven up the gangplank into the spaceship. “I must organize new hunts.”

      Franco lit a cigarette. “Why not? You people can go out into the veldt and track it all down again. But when we run out halfway between Mars and Earth—”

      The Optus went off, wordless. Franco joined the first mate at the bottom of the gangplank.

      “How’s it coming?” he said. He looked at his watch. “We got a good bargain here.”

      The mate glanced at him sourly. “How do you explain that?”

      “What’s the matter with you? We need it more than they do.”

      “I’ll see you later, Captain.” The mate threaded his way up the plank, between the long-legged Martian go-birds, into the ship. Franco watched him disappear. He was just starting up after him, up the plank toward the port, when he saw it.

      “My God!” He stood staring, his hands on his hips. Peterson was walking along the path, his face red, leading it by a string.

      “I’m sorry, Captain,” he said, tugging at the string. Franco walked toward him.

      “What is it?”

      The wub stood sagging, its great body settling slowly. It was sitting down, its eyes half shut. A few flies buzzed about its flank, and it switched its tail.

      It sat. There was silence.

      “It’s a wub,” Peterson said. “I got it from a native for fifty cents. He said it was a very unusual animal. Very respected.”

      “This?” СКАЧАТЬ