Fantastic Stories Presents the Imagination (Stories of Science and Fantasy) Super Pack. Edmond Hamilton

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ part of an hour, but earth astronomers attributed the track either to an irregularity in the photographic plate or to some peculiarity in the atmosphere.

      Near the hub where the gravity was weak, the nine aliens lived; in the two rim compartments lived the mutants. There were almost a thousand of the latter—both male and female—in the larger compartment; and fewer than thirty—all male—in the smaller one.

      “Soon, now,” the mutants told each other with growing excitement, “we shall go down and kill them.”

      The aliens stepped up the power in the larger of the two transmitters. “Our indoctrination is perfect,” they reassured themselves. “The mutants will not get out of hand.”

Chapter III

      Julia bought a round trip ticket on the Greyhound Bus and carried her bag to the waiting room. A few minutes later the bus drew up outside, bringing with it the exciting travel-smell of hot rubber and gasoline. Most of the passengers climbed out to stretch in the winter sunlight.

      “Fifteen minutes,” the driver said.

      Julia picked up her bag and carried it outside. She gave her ticket to the driver, who was standing by the door, smoking a cigarette. Half way back in the bus she found an empty seat. She hoisted the bag—standing on her tip toes—to the rack above and settled into the seat, primly rearranging her dress.

      But she was unable to relax. She stared out the window; the building across the lot presented an uninteresting and windowless expanse of brick. She yawned nervously and surveyed the other passengers who were beginning to filter back.

      The driver dropped heavily into his seat behind the wheel; he pulled the door closed, and the motor purred. He counted his passengers in the mirror.

      Julia tightened her lips, and her face wrinkled into a stubborn little frown. Her finger tapped restlessly on her knee. She resolved to bring the husband back with her.

      She could buy the Castle Place out on Mannor Street for $4,000. She would have $10,000 left to buy him—to make the down payment on, at least—Beck’s Hardware Store. From that they would realize a steady and an adequate income. She would give Saturday teas for the society women and show her husband off—in a neat, double breasted suit—in church on Sunday. They would go to the movies twice a week; they would go dancing once a month. They would have three children, two boys and a girl. She would let her husband go moose hunting in Canada once a year, and weekends during bass season they’d go up to the lodge (I should be able to buy the Roger’s cabin on Center Creek for a few hundred, she thought) and fish.

      She suddenly wished she had flown to Hollywood. She was in a great hurry to get there, get the selecting over and done with, and get back.

      At Joplin a young man got on and sat down beside her. She watched him, from time to time, out of the corner of her eye. Outside, the huge chat piles (said by the civic boosters to be the biggest in the world) paraded by the bus. Ought to start snowing again pretty soon, she thought . . . . It will be fun to swim in the Pacific in February.

      *

      After the bus crossed the Missouri-Kansas line she turned to the young man seated beside her. “I’m going to Hollywood,” she said.

      “Going to get in the movies?”

      “Oh, no,” Julia said, “ . . . no.” Her finger tapped impatiently on her knee.

      “That’s why most pretty girls go to Hollywood.”

      Julia blushed. Her eyes, brown and friendly, searched his face. “I’m the domestic sort,” she said. “My name’s Julia. What’s yours?”

      “My name’s William.”

      “That’s a nice name.”

      “Julia’s a nice name, too.”

      “I majored in literature in high school,” Julia said. “I like to read. I worked in a book store back home.”

      William shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t read much.”

      Julia frowned. “I read a lot.”

      “Reading’s all right.”

      “I like to curl up with a good book.”

      They fell silent.

      Julia bit her lip, nipping it into redness with her white, even teeth. I guess I’m not much of a conversationalist, she thought. For a moment she felt tiny and afraid.

      Dispiritedly she searched in her sandwich bag for an apple. She brought it out and regarded it intently.

      “You want half?”

      “No, thanks.”

      She found a pen knife in her hand bag and began to peel the apple, wrinkling her forehead in concentration.

      The bus was in a state supervised section of the highway. It hit a chuck hole, and the pen knife slipped, slicing deeply into her finger. Annoyed and embarrassed, she watched the blood well up in the cut. She put the apple in her lap. “Oh, dear . . . .” She held the finger away from her.

      *

      William bent forward. “Euuuu,” he said sympathetically. “Here . . . .” He reached for his handkerchief. But before the hand got to it, he reconsidered, perhaps remembering that handkerchiefs are unsanitary. “Euuuu,” he said again, shuddering. He moved his hands helplessly and stared at the blood trickling from the finger onto the floor. “Euuuu.”

      Julia decided: No, he certainly won’t do.

      She glared angrily at her finger.

      And the cut closed; the edges came together and joined in a neat, red line. The blood ceased to flow. The red line vanished as the flesh knitted. The finger was as scarless as it had been moments before.

      “I’ll be God damned,” the young man said.

      “ . . . that’s very odd,” Julia said. She held up the finger. She put the pen knife in her lap beside the apple and felt the finger.

      “You must have some rare type of blood,” William said.

      She wiggled the finger. “You mean something like the reverse of hemophilia?”

      “I don’t guess I read enough to know big words: just some rare type of blood.”

      “Nothing like this ever happened before,” Julia said, still watching the finger suspiciously. “I’ve never heard of anything like it.”

       Hello.

      “Hello,” she answered.

      “What did you say?” the young man asked.

      “I said, ‘Hello’.”

      “Hello.”

      “Didn’t СКАЧАТЬ